"Your father may thank you, Helen Sedley, for being in a whole skin at this present," said a man to her one day, when Sedley had been mare than usually violent in his language and bearing towards him for having, in some trivial matter, disobeyed his orders. "He taunted me with having been lagged, as you heard, Miss Sedley; and it isn't the first nor the second time, and my opinion is that he will do it once too often. He threatened me with Norfolk Island, too, did he? Let him take care that he isn't sent to a darker and narrower hole than Norfolk Island one of these days."
"You must not speak so to me, Styles," said Helen, firmly, though her heart secretly fluttered at seeing the dark eyes of the man glisten, as with the wild fire of rage and vengeance, while he was speaking. But Helen, though scarcely twenty years old, was wise and brave as well as good and kind; and she knew that she must not show signs of fear.
"I must speak, Miss Sedley," rejoined the man, respectfully enough so far as Helen was concerned, but doggedly and fiercely too; "if I don't speak here and now, I shall talk to another purpose somewhere else, and at some other time, not far-off, perhaps. Look here, Miss Sedley, in the old country I was as good a man as your father, I reckon, though I mightn't have had his education. At all events, I wasn't a lawyer as he was—so I have heard, at least. But I was a gentleman's son, and might have been a gentleman myself at this time if it hadn't been for—there, never mind. But I don't forget what I was once; and 'tis hard lines to be treated worse than a dog, as your father treats me."
"I have told you many times, Styles, how much I feel for you—for all who are in your unhappy position," said Helen, softly; "and now I ask you for my sake to make allowances for my father."
"He makes precious few allowances for me," retorted the man, gloomily. Nevertheless, he remained waiting to hear what more Helen had to say.
"You know what a loss he—what a loss both of us had to bear five years ago. My mother, my sisters, my brothers—there were six of us then—" Helen's firmness gave way here.
"I know—that is, I have heard it all," said Styles, more mildly than he had before spoken; "and I am a brute not to make allowances, as you say. But it is hard, Miss Sedley, for all that, to be a—to be what I am, and to feel what I feel at times. It gets over me. Do you know why I was sent out and am here, Miss Sedley?"
"I have never inquired, and I have never been told," the young woman answered.
"It was not for dishonesty; I never stole a penny, I never cheated any man out of a farthing to my knowledge; but I struck a man when I was in a passion, and I struck him hard. I didn't mean to do mischief; I didn't know what I was doing till it was too late. The man insulted me, but not so bad as your father has done the same thing, and I was too high-spirited to stand it. Before he could speak another word, the deed was done; he fell down like lead, and he never spoke again."
The perspiration broke out on Styles's forehead, and his lips quivered as he spoke; and then presently he added, more quietly and softly—