“Come come, Lyon! I’m blest if I’ll stand by and see a lady brow-beaten so, if it is by her husband! If you don’t stop this instantly, I’ll——”
“Be quiet, Richard Hammond, and let the man speak to his wife,” said General Lyon authoritatively, with covert irony, as he laid his hand on Dick and held him back.
Richard yielded, seeing in this unnatural forbearance of the old soldier, only the ominous calm that portends the fiercest storm.
But, as for Alexander Lyon, so absorbed was he by his own raging passions, that he perceived nothing of this bye-scene. Still brandishing his hand above her drooping head, he continued to pour out his wrath upon his wife.
“You never loved me! You never loved any one but yourself! You never loved me, certainly, or you never would have betrayed me in this base manner,” he exclaimed.
Her white lips quivered—parted, but only inarticulate murmurs issued from them.
“But do not flatter yourself, girl, that your treachery shall serve your purpose. Such a marriage, so procured, can never stand in law. And here, in the presence of these witnesses, I utterly refuse to acknowledge its validity, or to recognize you as my wife! Here, I renounce you forever!”
Her pleading hands were lifted in an agony of deprecation, and then dropped by her side, in despair.
“Had you accepted the position I gave you, although I should never have seen your face again, yet I would have provided handsomely for your support. But now, since you have put this foul deception upon me, for all the help you can get from me, you may—PERISH!” he hissed.
“Not so,” said the fine old gentleman, General Lyon, drawing the arm of the outraged and half crushed young creature, closer within his own. “Not so, by your leave. I charge myself with the care of my niece, Mrs. Alexander Lyon. Her home shall be here, with my grand-daughter and myself—here, where she shall live in peace and safety—loved and honored, until such times as you—madman!—shall come to your senses, and sue more humbly for the forgiveness of the wronged wife, than you ever did for the love of the unhappy maiden.”