Already James Hope’s words were producing an effect on Neal’s mind. The extreme bitterness of his passion was dying away from him.
“You are right,” he said, “I wish to act always as a man of honour, but my honour is engaged——”
“That is not what you said before. Before, you spoke of revenge and not of honour. But let that pass. I will try to show you, as a truly noble man would, as your friend, Lord Dunseveric, would if he were here to advise you, how your honour really binds you. You were rescued from your imprisonment last night and from death this morning by your friend, Maurice St. Clair, and he bid you go home. He set you free in order that you might go home. I think he would not have done what he did unless he had believed that you would go home. You are in honour bound to him. You are in reality still a prisoner—a prisoner released on parole, although no formal promise was required of you. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I understand; but you are advising me to do a cowardly thing—to desert you, whom I reckon my friend, in the time of your extremity.”
“Maurice St. Clair was your friend before I was, Neal. You are bound to him by earlier ties. Besides, he has given you your life.”
“But he is in no danger.”
“I am not sure of that. If it is discovered that he let you go last night he will surely suffer for it. They have hanged men for less, and imprisoned or exiled others.”
“Oh,” said Neal, “I could find it in my heart to wish they would hang Maurice. Hope, you know many men and many things, but you don’t know Lord Dunseveric. Why, man, if they hanged Maurice the old lord would hang them—he would hang them in batches of a score at a time. If any escaped him he would wait for them till the resurrection morning. He would meet them as they stepped out of their graves and hang them then. He would hang them if there wasn’t another tree in the whole universe to put the rope round except the tree of life which stands by the river in the New Jerusalem.”
He laughed exultingly. Hope looked at him with pitying tenderness. He understood the hysterical passion which had dragged such words from him.
“I am glad,” he said, “that your friend is in no great danger, but that does not alter the truth of what I say. You are his prisoner, released on your parole, and you must present yourself to him when he calls for you at Dunseveric. Besides, Neal, you owe a duty to your father and to those at home who love you. For their sakes you must not throw your life away.”