"'My child lived, and what remained to me of human passion and longing centred in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money, then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human selfishness, but not as yet new fears. My nature was not one to grasp ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make me lenient toward you.
"'I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to realise that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better, kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor health warranted you in looking upon even in those early days as your own? To others' eyes it may appear none; to mine, ye are one and all his murderers as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the good physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal one. He would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a precipice swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I of all who looked upon the footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point knew whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called, and I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy and made you my heirs.'"
Silence, as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus openly impeached, had for some minutes now replaced the muttered complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him, who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked sinner who had started it.
I began to have a wholesome dread of them all, and was astonished to see the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did. Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled toward it, nor was a single glass held out.
The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's story.
"'Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough. Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost. Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I chose a boy from alien stock, and for a while knew contentment again. But as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been secured by my son's death, and one day—can you recall it, Hudson? Can you recall it, Lemuel?—the boy was brought in from the mill, and laid at my feet dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was the voice which, with the loud "Halloo!" had startled him? Can you say, Luke? Can you say, John? I can say, in whose ear it was whispered that three, if not more of you were seen moving among the machinery that fatal morning.
"'Again God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again ye were my heirs.'"
"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually growing livid under his long grey locks.
"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.
"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.