"I never wish to see him again. For the sake of what is past, I would have been content to see him, if he would have ceased from persecuting me; but after what he has said to you, I hope he will leave us in peace."
"You hear," exclaims George Marvel; "we are happy enough without you. Go, and never darken this door again!"
Solomon Fewster looks round, almost savagely; his face is white with passion, and all the vindictiveness of his bad nature comes into play.
"You are happy enough without me!" he sneers, with his knuckles to his mouth.
"Don't make too sure of that. I have been your friend hitherto. What if I now make myself your enemy? What if, when I go from this house, I spread about my version of your reason for leaving London? What if I tell your neighbors here of the real character of your sailor-hero, and how, because of his villainy, all your friends turned their backs upon you"--
But he has no time to say more; for the door, which has been partly open, swings on its hinges, and Joshua enters.
Not one of them recognizes him. In his strange garb, with his fur-cap pulled over his eyes, and with his face covered with hair, no trace of Joshua is discernible; and yet they look at him spell-bound, waiting for him to speak. He gazes at the forms of all the dear ones and grasps the back of a chair to steady himself. He takes them all in at a glance, and sees in one brief moment the changes in them that time has made. His mother's white hair; the deepened wrinkles in his father's face; Ellen more matronly than she was, but fair and pleasant to look at as when she was a girl; Susan, like an old woman; Dan grown a little stouter, and with the same dear boyish light in his eyes and on his face--but the child, clinging to Ellen's apron and looking at him wonderingly with Ellen's eyes and his!--
He had thought, before he entered, that he would be strong, but he has no more control over himself for a few moments than a straw in a fierce wind. Then muttering, "Justice first!" he turns upon Solomon Fewster a glance of hate and scorn, and grasps him by the shoulder with so powerful a grasp, that Fewster writhes with pain.
"I heard your last words," he says.
But directly he speaks, a thrill runs through them, and they are running towards him with outstretched arms, when he cries,--