Young Van Flange was speaking of those two hundred thousand dollars in bonds with which, by word of Big Kennedy, I had endowed Blossom in a day of babyhood. When she could understand, I had laid it solemnly upon her never to part with them. Under any stress, they would insure her against want; they must never be given up. And Blossom had promised.
These bonds were in a steel casket of their own, and Blossom had the key. As I listened, young Van Flange was demanding they be given to him; Blossom was pleading with him, and quoting my commands. My girl was sobbing, too, for the villain urged the business roughly. I could not fit my ear to every word, since their tones for the most were dulled to a murmur by the door. In the end, with a lift of the voice, I heard him say:
“For what else should I marry you except money? Is one of my blood to link himself with the daughter of the town's great thief, and call it love? The daughter of a murderer, too!” he exclaimed, and ripping out an oath. “A murderer, yes! You have the red proof about your throat! Because your father escaped hanging by the laws of men, heaven's law is hanging you!”
As I threw wide the door, Blossom staggered and fell to the floor. I thought for the furious blink of the moment, that he had struck her. How much stronger is hate than love! My dominant impulse was to avenge Blossom rather than to save her. I stood in the door in a white flame of wrath that was like the utter anger of a tiger. I saw him bleach and shrink beneath his sallowness.
As I came towards him, he held up his hands after the way of a boxing school. That ferocious strength, like a gorilla's, still abode with me. I brushed away his guard as one might put aside a trailing vine. In a flash I had him, hip and shoulder. My fingers sunk into the flesh like things of steel; he squeaked and struggled as does the rabbit when crunched up by the hound.
With a swing and a heave that would have torn out a tree by its roots, I lifted him from his feet. The next moment I hurled him from me. He crashed against the casing of the door; then he slipped to the floor as though struck by death itself.
Moved of the one blunt purpose of destruction, I made forward to seize him again. For a miracle of luck, I was withstood by one of the servants who rushed in.
“Think, master; think what you do!” he cried.
In a sort of whirl I looked about me. I could see how the old Galway nurse was bending over Blossom, crying on her for her “Heart's dearie!” My poor girl was lying along the rug like some tempest-broken flower. The stout old wife caught her up and bore her off in her arms.
The picture of my girl's white face set me ablaze again. I turned the very torch of rage!