“Which means, that I should give you up to justice, have you tried, condemned, executed. You, Doctor Urquhart, whom the world thinks so well of. I might live to see you hanged.”
His eyes glared, his whole frame was convulsed. I entreated him to calm himself, for his own health's sake, and the sake of his children.
“Yes, I will. Old as I am, this shall not kill me. I will live to exact retribution. My boy, my poor murdered Harry—murdered—murdered.”
He kept repeating and dwelling on the word, till at length I said:—
“If you know the whole truth, you must be aware that I had no intention to murder him.”
“What, you extenuate? You wish to escape? But you shall not. I will have you arrested now, in this very house.”
“Be it so, then.”
And I sat down.
So, the end had come. Life, and all its hopes, all its work, were over for me. I saw, as in a second of time, everything that was coming—the trial, the conviction, the newspaper clatter over my name, my ill deeds exaggerated, my good deeds pointed at with the finger of scorn, which perhaps was the keenest agony of all—save one.
“Theodora!”