"Very well! And you, my friend," he continued, addressing Claude, "is it not true what I said, Terque Quaterque redit! You fled in haste last night, but we meet again! Your method in affairs is the reverse, I fear, of that which your friend here would advise: namely, that to carry out a plan one should begin slowly, and end quickly; thereby putting on the true helmet of Plato, as it has been called by a learned Englishman of our time." Claude glowered at him, almost as much at a loss as the Syndic, but for another reason.

To exchange commonplaces with the man who held the woman he loved by an evil hold, who owned a power so baneful, so foul--to bandy words with such an one was beyond him.

He could only glare at him in speechless indignation.
"You bear malice, I fear," the big man said.

There was no doubt that he was master of the situation.

"Do you know that in the words of the same learned person whom I have cited--a marvellous exemplar amid that fog-headed people--vindictive persons live the life of witches, who as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate." The blood left Claude's face.