“No. I disown him. And you counsel this—you, girl?”
“Yes, father, you will spare him,” sobbed Louise; “he is my brother.”
“He has broken those ties; neither son nor brother to us, my child. He has blasted your future by branding you as a convict’s sister, and embittered the few years left to me, so that I would gladly end them now.”
“Father!”
“Hush, my child! I am rightly punished for my weakness. I hoped that he would change. I was not blind, only patient, for I said that these follies would soon pass, and now I am awakened to this. My son in the hands of the police!” he laughed in a wild, discordant tone. “Monsieur le Comte des Vignes, I must have been mad.”
“Go on!” said Harry, fiercely. “Trample me down. There, let me pass. Better in the hands of the police than here.”
“No, no?” cried Louise excitedly. “Father, he must escape. It is one great horror, do not make it worse by letting him go there.”
“Worse, girl? there is no worse!” cried Vine, sternly. “I thank my God that we are living in a land where stern, good laws are pre-eminent, and where justice rules with unswerving hand. You know not what you say.”
“Yes, father—dearest father, help him to go and repent the evil he has done.”
“Go and repent? Yes, that is the only hope; but it shall be as the honest repentant man, ready to acknowledge and bear the punishment of his crime.”