"Why, you don't mean to tell me you don't know this man?"
"Know him, papa! why, of course I know Mr. Hazel; know him and revere him, beyond all the world, except you."
The general lost patience. "Are you out of your senses?" said he; "this man here is no Hazel. Why, this is James Seaton—our gardener—a ticket-of-leave man."
CHAPTER LI.
AT this fearful insult Helen drew back from her father with a cry of dismay, and then moved toward Hazel with her hands extended, as if to guard him from another blow, and at the same time deprecate his resentment. But then she saw his dejected attitude; and she stood confounded, looking from one to the other.
"I knew him in a moment by his beard," said the general coolly.
"Ah!" cried Helen, and stood transfixed. She glared at Hazel and his beard with dilating eyes, and began to tremble.
Then she crept back to her father and held him tight; but still looked over her shoulder at Hazel with dilating eyes and paling cheek.
As for Hazel, his deportment all this time went far toward convicting him; he leaned against the side of the cave and hung his head in silence, and his face was ashy pale. When General Rolleston saw his deep distress, and the sudden terror and repugnance the revelation seemed to create in his daughter's mind, he felt sorry he had gone so far, and said: "Well, well; it is not for me to judge you harshly; for you have laid me under a deep obligation. And, after all, I can see good reasons why you should conceal your name from other people. But you ought to have told my daughter the truth."