"Yes, my son, yes!" she cried, convulsively; "they have come to kill you! to hang you!"
"Mother!"
"They say you killed the master."
"It's a lie!"
Samson Belk placed his mother in a chair, where she sat in a half-fainting condition, and turned fiercely towards the two men, like a lion at bay.
"Now then," he said--his habitually slow voice, sharp and quick--"what's all this?"
Maxwell held out his hand, and in the palm of it lay the diamond scarf-pin.
"Do you know this?" he demanded, slowly.
Belk gave a mighty laugh of scorn.
"Know it? Yes, I know it. 'Tis the diamond I got from yonder chap."