'No--no--I will answer no questions that may be asked in your hearing.

But that your wife's presence protects you, I would kick you down your own stairs before me.' Captain Val retreated a step--he could retreat no more--and wiped his moustache with both hands at once.

Mrs.Val screamed.
Victoire took hold of the back of a chair, as though he thought it well that he should be armed in the general battle that was to ensue; and Alaric, without further speech, walked out of the room, and went away to his office.
'So you have given up Strathbogy ?' said Sir Gregory to him, in the course of the day.
'I think I have,' said Alaric; 'considering all things, I believe it will be the best for me to do so.' 'Not a doubt of it,' said Sir Gregory--'not a doubt of it, my dear fellow;' and then Sir Gregory began to evince, by the cordiality of his official confidence, that he had fully taken Alaric back into his good graces.

It was nothing to him that Strathbogy had given up Alaric instead of Alaric giving up Strathbogy.

He was sufficiently pleased at knowing that the danger of his being supplanted by his own junior was over.
And then Alaric again went into the weary city, again made inquiries about his shares, and again returned to his office, and thence to his home.
But on his return to his office, he found lying on his table a note in Undy's handwriting, but not signed, in which he was informed that things would yet be well, if the required shares should be forthcoming on the following day.
He crumpled the note tight in his hand, and was about to fling it among the waste paper, but in a moment he thought better of it, and smoothing the paper straight, he folded it, and laid it carefully on his desk.
That day, on his visit into the city, he had found that the bridge shares had fallen to less than the value of their original purchase-money; and that evening he told Gertrude everything.