“It was a most determined murder,” said the other, thoughtfully.
“Murder! murder!” screamed the first, in a voice of fierce passion; “and is it you that calls it a murder?”
“No matter how it is called. Let us speak of something else.”
“Very well. Let us talk about the price of it. It is n't paid yet!”
“Is it nothing that I have taken you from abject, starving misery—from a life of cold, want, and wretchedness, to live at ease in the first city of the universe? Is it no part of the price that you spend your days in pleasure and your nights in debauch?—that, with the appetite of the peasant, you partake of the excesses of the gentleman? Is it no instalment of the debt, I say, that you, who might now be ground down to the very earth as a slave at home, dare to lift your head and speak thus to me?”
“And is it you dares to tell me this?” cried the other, in savage energy; “is it you, that made me a murderer, and then think that I can forget it because I'm a drunkard? But I don't forget it! I 'll never forget it! I see him still, as he lay gasping before me, and trying to beg for mercy when he could n't ask for it. I see him every day when I 'm in a lonely place; and, oh! he's never away from me at night, with his bloody hands on his head trying to save it, and screaming out for God to help him. And what did I get for it? answer me that,” yelled he, in accents shrill with passion. “Is it my wife begging from door to door—is it my children naked and hungry—is it my little place, a ruin and a curse over it—or is it myself trying to forget it in drink, not knowing the day nor the hour that it will rise up against me, and that I 'll be standing in the dock where I saw him that you tried to murder too?”
“There is no use in this passion,” said the other, calmly; “let us be friends, Tom; it is our interest to be so.”
“Them's the very words you towld Mr. Phillis, and the next day he was taken up for robbery, and you had him transported.”
“Phillis was a fool, and paid the penalty of a fool; but you are a shrewd fellow, who can see to his own advantage. Now listen to me calmly: were it not for bad luck, we might all of us have had more money now than we could count or squander. Had Maritaña continued upon the stage, her gains would by this time have been enormous. The bank, too, would have prospered; her beauty would have drawn around us all that was wealthy and dissipated in the world of fashion; we could have played what stake we pleased. Princes, ambassadors, ministers of state would have been our game. Curses be on his head who spoiled this glorious plan! From that unhappy night at Venice she never would appear again, nor could she. The shock has been like a blight upon her. You have seen her yourself, and know what it has made her.”
The artifice by which the speaker contrived to change the topic, and withdraw the other from a painful subject to one of seeming confidence, was completely successful; and in the altered tone of voice might be read the change which had come over him.