"Your words are unjust, sir," said Murray with a hauteur he had not shown previously. "Indeed, if matters fall out, as I anticipate, I shall soon give proof which can not be ignored of my devotion to the Good Cause. I am preparing a combination which——"
He swung around suddenly upon me.
"But I am forgetting my main purpose!" he cried. "Stand up, grandnephew, and let me have a look at you."
I would not have heeded him, but my father said quickly:
"Do as he asks you, Robert. I'd not have him think you are crooked in the legs."
So I stood.
"A likely build," he remarked warmly. "You favor your father, I see—save in the face, it may be. There you are your mother, my maid Marjory. Ah, sweet chit, would she were with us now! A sad loss; a sad loss, lad!"
The expression which came to my father's face was terrible in its intensity of passion. He leaned closer to Murray, white to the cheekbones, his nostrils pinched in.
"Murray," he said, "make an end of such talk! As you value your life, mention her not again. I know not what cards you hold up your sleeve here, but if we all die in the next moment I will slay you as you sit if you profane her memory with your foul tongue."
Murray stared up at him coolly and took a pinch of snuff.