"That's what I say, and it's what poor Kitty did, rest her soul, for she is dead now, poor thing."
Her voice dropped to a softer tone suddenly, and she was silent for a few seconds; but when she resumed her story the shrill tone, the tone which irritated and hurt him, he knew not why, rang out again.
"But the old man would have none of it. He swore all the vengeance he could think of against her and hers. He swore no woman should ever set foot in this place again. He hounded the father and mother of that unfortunate girl to their graves; he chased her and her husband from pillar to post, robbing them, swindling them, betraying them until there was no place on the face of the earth they could call their own, no, not even a stick nor a shred. The devil was good to him—sure he always is good to his own. Money came to him by the waggon-load, and ever did he use it to hound those two unfortunates down, lower and lower until there was no hope nor peace for them, and they wandered outcasts in the sight of man and woman. And that's the man, that old double-dyed, heartless scoundrel that you police flock to preserve and protect, while the likes of Kitty and her husband are forced down and down and down to the lowest dregs of life. Is that justice? Is that law? Is that right? Answer me that now."
"Probably Mr. Dudgeon coloured his story a good deal when he told it: old men usually do when they recount their youthful doings," he said quietly. "But, in any case——"
She held out her hand impulsively.
"Wait a moment," she said. "Supposing he did. Supposing the tale is only half true; but supposing that he did drive Kitty and her husband to the gutter, and suppose they had children—do you think if those children knew what that old scoundrel had done they would not be right to pay him back in his own coin? Sure I'm glad I was able to make the old vagabond eat his own words when I bought the place over his head. He's met one woman in the world who has defied him. And do you know what? If I knew where any of Kitty Lambton's children were at this moment—or her husband, seeing she is dead, poor thing—at least, so the doctor said—I'd go to them and say they could have the place free if only they would go and taunt that old fiend and fling it in his face and hound him down as he hounded down their parents."
"What good would that do either you or them?" he asked.
"Good?"
She sprang out of her chair and stood facing him.
"Don't you know what it is to hate?" she cried. "Is it only Irish blood that can boil at rank injustice? Is it only Irish hearts which burn to aid the oppressed and torture the oppressors as they tortured their poor unfortunate victims? You said you would shoot the man who struck you down, shoot him like a dog, if he were escaping your clutches. Don't you think Kitty Lambton's children have as great, if not a greater right to shoot that bloodless, heartless monster like a dog or a cat or any other vermin, if they met him on this earth? I'd tell them to do it; I'd tell them to do it if there were no other way to make his last hours more full of misery and agony. That's what I'd do, the dirty old traitorous villain that he is. Pah!"