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166 trying to stand up, and look dignified and sober. “I say, sir, that if you ever venture again to talk and look as you have done to-night, why, sir, I will ring the bell and have you shown the door by my servants. So now you’re warned, my fine fellow!” He sat down, laughing a foolish tipsy laugh of triumph. In another minute his arm was held firmly but gently by Ralph.

“Listen, Mr. Wilkins,” he said, in a low hoarse voice. “You shall never have to say to me twice what you have said to-night. Henceforward we are as strangers to each other. As to Ellinor”—his tones softened a little, and he sighed in spite of himself—“I do not think we should have been happy. I believe our engagement was formed when we were too young to know our own minds, but I would have done my duty and kept to my word; but you, sir, have yourself severed the connection between us by your insolence to-night. I, to be turned out of your house by your servants!—I, a Corbet of Westley, who would not submit to such threats from a peer of the realm, let him be ever so drunk!” He was out of the room, almost out of the house, before he had spoken the last words.

Mr. Wilkins sat still, first fiercely angry, then astonished, and lastly dismayed into sobriety.