What would a gentleman, a man of honour, have done under these circumstances?
What did you do?
You seized that last chance; you turned it to the best account; you made this poor girl buy something from you; you made her sell herself to you for nothing--pretending that your nothing was a something of great value.

What term shall we apply to that?
To say that you cheated again seems hardly adequate." "By God, Bardelys!" "Wait!" I thundered, looking him straight between the eyes, so that again he sank back cowed.

Then resuming the calm with which hitherto I had addressed him, "Your cupidity," said I, "your greed for the estates of Bardelys, and your jealousy and thirst to see me impoverished and so ousted from my position at Court, to leave you supreme in His Majesty's favour, have put you to strange shifts for a gentleman, Chatellerault.
Yet, wait." And, dipping my pen in the ink-horn, I began to write.

I was conscious of his eyes upon me, and I could imagine his surmisings and bewildered speculations as my pen scratched rapidly across the paper.

In a few moments it was done, and I tossed the pen aside.