Bayard stood so still—with the composure of a man not without athletic training, determined to waste no strength in useless struggle—that Trawl instinctively loosened his clutch. Was the minister strangling? This was not Ben’s immediate purpose. His fingers relaxed.

“Ah,” said Bayard quietly, “so you are Jack Haddock.”

“I wrote that note. You might have known it if you hadn’t been a —— fool.”

“I might have known it—yes; I see. But I took you for a decent fellow. I couldn’t be expected to suspect you were—what you are. Well, Mr. Trawl, perhaps you will explain your business with me in some less uncomfortable manner.”

He shook Ben off with a strong thrust, and folded his arms.

“Come,” he said. “Out with it!”

“My game’s up,” replied Ben between his teeth. “I can’t do what I set out to, now. There’s too many witnesses in the case.”

“You meant to push me off Ragged Rock, perhaps?” asked Bayard quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that. But I see—it would not have been difficult. A man can be taken unawares in the dark, and as you say, there would have been no witnesses.”

“You come home too soon,” growled Ben. “I counted on getting away and bein’ here to welcome you, and nobody the wiser; d—— them two women! I supposed you’d stay awhile with your girl. A man would, in our kind of folks. Lord! you don’t seem to belong to any kind of folks that I can see. I don’t know what to make of you. —— you! —— you! —— you! I’d like to see you go yellin’ and bub—ble—in’ down to your drownin’! I’m heavier’n you be, come to the tug. I could do it now, inside of ten minutes.”

“And hang for it in ten months,” observed Bayard, smiling.

“I could get a dozen men to swear to an alibi!” cried Trawl. “You ain’t so popular in this town as to make that a hard job. You’ve got the whole liquor interest ag’in’ you. Lord! the churches would back ’em, too, that’s the joke of it!”

He laughed savagely.

Bayard made no reply. He had winced in the dark at the words. They were worse than the grip at his throat.

“When you get ready, Ben, suppose you explain what you have against me?” he suggested, after an uncomfortable pause.

“You’ve took my girl!” roared Ben.

“Your girl? Your girl?”

Bayard gasped, from the sheer intellectual shock of the idea.

“You’ve made love to her, behind my back! You’ve turned her head! She ain’t no eyes left in her for anybody but you, —— you! And I’ve ben keepin’ company with her for four years. You’ve got my girl away from me, and you’d oughter drown for it. Drownin’ ’s too good for you!”

“Look here, Ben,” said Bayard. “Are you drunk?”

“We don’t drink—me, nor my father. And you know it. We ain’t such —— fools!”

“It is a waste of the English language to add,” observed the preacher, with an accession of his natural dignity, which was not without its effect upon Ben Trawl, “that I have never regarded Miss Granite—for a moment—in the extraordinary light which you suggest. It seems to me unnecessary to point out to you the unnaturalness—I may be frank, and say the impossibility—of such a supposition.”

“—— you!” raved Ben, “ain’t she good enough for you, then?”

“Ben Trawl,” said the minister imperiously, “this nonsense has gone far enough. If you have nothing more reasonable to say to me, we may as well stop talking, for I’m going home. If you have, I’ll stay and hear it out.”

Bayard calmly seated himself upon the base of Ragged Rock, and took off his hat.

“What a warm, pleasant night it is!” he said in a tone so changed that Ben Trawl stared.

“Plucky, anyhow,” thought Ben. But he said: “I ain’t got half through yet. I’ve got another score ag’in’ you. You’ve took the girl, and now you’re takin’ the business.”

“Ah,” replied the preacher; “that’s another matter.”

“You own up to it, do you? —— you!”

“Assuredly,” answered Bayard. “I am doing my best to ruin your business. It is a pleasure to hear you admit it. It has gone further than I supposed.”

“It has gone further ’n you suppose!” echoed Ben malignantly, “and it will go further ’n you suppose! Me and Father have stood it long enough. There’s them that backs us that you never give one of your —— holy thoughts to. I give you warning on the spot, Mr. Bayard. You stop just where you be. Meddle with our business one inch further, and you’ll hear from the whole liquor interest of Windover. We’ll blow you into eternity if you don’t let us alone.”

“I should count that,” replied the preacher gently, “the greatest honor of my life.”

“Anyhow,” said Ben in a calmer tone, “if you don’t let our business be, we’ll ruin yourn.”

“That is quite possible,” returned Bayard; “but it won’t be without a big tussle.”

“You don’t believe me,” sneered Ben; “you think we ain’t up to it.”

“Do you suppose, Ben,” asked the preacher quietly, “that an educated man would deliberately choose the course that I have chosen to pursue in this town without informing himself on all branches of the subject that he is handling? Do you suppose I don’t know what the liquor interest is capable of when attacked by Christian temperance? There hasn’t been an outrage, a persecution, a crime,—no, not a murder committed in the name of rum and the devil against the cause of decency and sobriety in this country for years, that I haven’t traced its history out, and kept the record of it. Come up to my study, and see the correspondence and clippings I have collected on this matter. There are two shelves full, Ben.”

“Lord!” said Ben. His jaw dropped a little. He felt the inferiority of the ignorant man before education, the weakness of moral debility before moral vigor. He turned and took a few steps towards the town. The minister followed him amiably, and the two strode on in silence.

“He don’t scare worth a cent,” thought Ben. Aloud he said:—

“So you’re goin’ to fight us, be you?”

“Till I die,” answered Bayard solemnly; “and if I die!”

“You won’t take no warnin’ then?” asked Ben with a puzzled air.

“Neither from you, Ben, nor from any other man.”

“The worse for you, then!” returned Ben in an ugly tone.

“I’ll risk it,” replied Bayard serenely.

“There’s them that says you’re goin’ to fight it out at the polls,” said Ben, more sullenly now than savagely. “Folks says you’re goin’ to get away Father’s license.”

“I hadn’t thought of it till this minute!” exclaimed the preacher. “But it would be a good idea.”

Ben made an inarticulate noise in his throat. Bayard instinctively thrust out his elbow; he thought for the moment that Ben would spring upon him out of sheer rage. They were out on the open downs, now; but still only the witness of the sky and sea and rocks remained to help him.

“Look here,” said Ben, suddenly stopping. “Are you going to tell of me?”

“That you were so uncivil as to put your hands on my throat, Ben?—I haven’t decided.”

“Not that I care a ——!” muttered Ben. “But Jane”—

“I shall never mention any circumstance of this—rather unpleasant evening—which would bring Miss Granite’s name into publicity,” replied the preacher quickly. “She is a good, modest girl. She should be sheltered and cared for. You might better toss a woman off Ragged Rock—as you intended to do by me—than to turn the gossip of Windover loose upon her.”

“It is a hell of a town, if you come to that,” said Ben with calm conviction.

“She is much too good for you, Ben Trawl,” remarked Bayard quite politely, as if he were offering the other a glass of lemonade.

“Lord!” groaned Ben, writhing under the minister’s manner. “Don’t you suppose that’s the worst on’t?”

“I think I’ll cut across here towards the hotel,” observed Bayard pleasantly. “We seem to have talked out, for this time. Good-night, Ben.”

“Say,” said Ben, “why don’t you spout temperance to me? Why ain’t you talked religion? Why ain’t you set out to convert me? I give you chance enough!”

“You are an intelligent man,” replied the preacher; “you know what you are about. I don’t waste sacred powder on useless shot.”

“Queer Dick, you,” mused Ben. “It’s just as I said. You don’t belong to any kind of folks I ever see before. I can’t make you out.”

“Next time you want to murder me, Ben,” called the minister cheerily, “don’t try anonymous traps! Show up like a man, and have it out in the open air!”

He walked on towards the beach. Ben watched him for a perplexed and sullen moment, then took his course thoughtfully in the direction of the town.

When the two men had disappeared from the dark map of the downs, a woman’s figure swiftly and quietly crossed it. Jane Granite had followed the minister like the spaniel that she was, and, hidden in the shadows of Ragged Rock, thinking to save him, God knew how, from Heaven knew what fate, had overheard the interview from beginning to end.