He glared into my face as he spoke, with an expression which only too closely resembled that of a wild beast. Words rose to my lips. I hardly knew what I said.
"But are you not a Christian—you are a God-fearing man?"
It was a strange question, and he answered it with a sneer fearful to see.
"God-fearing? I used to be so when I knelt, a gossoon, at my mother's knee; and when, a stripling, I led the village choir. But so I am not now. I have only one god, and that is gold."
He brought out the words with a fearful power, as though he hurled them against something. His voice actually rose above the storm, and he threw back his head as though in defiance of the very heavens.
I shuddered, but I spoke with more courage than I had hitherto done.
"If all that is true," I said, "surely you will see yourself that you are no companion for Winifred."
"No companion for my little lady?" he repeated in surprise, with that same softening of his face and tone I had before remarked. "There you are wrong. I guard her as the rock guards the little flower which grows in its crevice, as the gardener guards a cherished plant, as the miner guards his rarest gem. I teach her to pray, to kneel in church down yonder, to believe, to hope, to love; because all that is her shield and safeguard against the great false world into which she will have to go. Why, Father Owen himself has scarce done more for her on the score of religion. I tell her tales of the saints and holy people who sleep in the soil of Ireland; but all the while I am a sinner—a black sinner—with but one god, whom I worship with all my might, and for whom I slave day and night."
"You can not be what you say if you have done all that for Winifred," I ventured.
"I am what I say!" he cried, turning on me with a snarl. "And so you shall find if you attempt to meddle with me; for I have a secret, and if you were to discover that—" he paused—"I believe I would kill you!"