"Do you hear my father's words, Alvarado?" cried Mercedes sinking on her knees and stretching up her hands to him. "'Tis a sharp weapon. One touch will end it all, and you can follow."
"God help me!" cried the unhappy young Captain, throwing aside the poniard and clasping his hands to his eyes. "I cannot! Hath no one here a point for me? If I have deserved well of you or the State, sir, bid them strike home."
"Live, young sir," interrupted Morgan, "there are other women in the world. Come with me and——"
"If you are my father, you have but little time in this world," interrupted the Spaniard, turning to Morgan and gnashing his teeth at him. "I doubt not but you were cruel to my mother. I hate you! I loathe you! I despise you for all your crimes! And most of all for bringing me into the world. I swear to you, had I the power, I'd not add another moment to your life. The world were better rid of you."
"You have been well trained by your Spanish nurses," cried Morgan resolutely, although with sneering mockery and hate in his voice, "and well you seem to know the duty owed by son to sire."
"You have done nothing for me," returned the young soldier, "you abandoned me. Such as you are you were my father. You cast me away to shift for myself. Had it not been for these friends here——"
"Nay," said Morgan, "I thought you dead. That cursed one-eyed traitor there told me so, else I'd sought you out."
"God help me!" cried Alvarado, throwing aside the poniard, "I cannot!"
"Glad am I that you did not, for I have passed my life where no child of yours could hope to be—among honorable men, winning their respect, which I now forfeit because of thee."