“You damned rascal, you stole the key. If it had not been for that I should have gone to her again. I only wanted to bring her to reason!”
“But as you had lost the key, rather than expose your cruelty, you went away, and left her to perish! You wanted her to die unless you could compel her to marry your son, that the title and property might go together; and that when with my own ears I heard your lordship tell that son that he had no right to any title!”
“What a man may say in a rage goes for nothing,” answered the earl, sulkily rather than fiercely.
“But not what a woman writes in sorrow!” rejoined Donal. “I know the truth from the testimony of her you called your wife, as well as from your own mouth!”
“The testimony of the dead, and at second hand, will hardly be received in court!” returned the earl.
“If after your lordship’s death, the man now called lord Forgue dares assume the title of Morven, I will publish what I know. In view of that, your lordship had better furnish him with the vouchers of his mother’s marriage. My lord, I again beg you to leave the house.”
The earl cast his eyes round the walls as if looking for a weapon. Donal took him by the arm.
“There is no farther room for ceremony,” he said. “I am sorry to be rough with your lordship, but you compel me. Please remember I am the younger and the stronger man.”
As he spoke he let the earl feel the ploughman’s grasp: it was useless to struggle. His lordship threw himself on the couch.
“I will not leave the house. I am come home to die,” he yelled. “I’m dying now, I tell you. I cannot leave the house! I have no money. Forgue has taken all.”