Zouche was sulky, and pushing aside his glass of beer, poured out for
himself some strong spirit from a bottle instead.
"You do not favour me to-night, Lotys," he said irritably--"You
interrupt and cross me in everything I say!"
"Is it not a woman's business to interrupt and cross a man?" queried
Lotys, with a laugh,--"As I have told you before, Zouche, I will not
have Sholto worried!"
"Who worries him?" grumbled Zouche--"Not I!"
"Yes, you!--you worry him on his most sensitive point--his daughter,"
said Lotys;--"Why can you not leave the child alone? Sholto is an
Englishman," she explained, turning to Pasquin Leroy and his companions
--"His history is a strange one enough. He is the rightful heir to a
large estate in England, but he was born deformed. His father hated
him, and preferred the second son, who was straight and handsome. So
Sholto disappeared."
"Disappeared!" echoed Leroy--"You mean----"
"I mean that he left his father's house one morning, and never
returned. The clothes he wore were found floating in the river near by,
and it was concluded that he had been drowned while bathing. The second
son, therefore, inherited the property; and poor Sholto was scarcely
missed; certainly not mourned. Meanwhile he went away, and got on board
a Spanish trading boat bound for Cadiz.
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