“Luke!”
“I tell you, George, I’m sick of the miserable cant. Died like a hero! Woman, it was your miserable teaching made him the discontented wretch he was.”
“For pity’s sake, Luke.”
“I must speak, now,” cried the old man furiously; “it’s time she knew the truth: but for you who, in return for the shelter of your brother’s roof, filled the boy’s head with your vain folly, he would have been a respectable member of society, an honest Englishman, instead of a would-be murderer and thief.”
“It is false!” cried Aunt Marguerite.
“It is true!” thundered the old man, in spite of his brother’s imploring looks; “true, and you know it’s true. Died like a hero, with his face to the foe! He died, if he be dead, like a coward, afraid to face the officer of the law he had outraged—a disgrace to the name of Vine.”
Aunt Marguerite stood gazing at him, as if trying to stay him with the lightning of her eyes, but his burst of passion was at an end, and he did not even realise that her vindictive looks had faded out, and that she had grown ghastly as a sheet, and tottered half palsied from the room.
For, horrified by the agony he read in his brother’s face, Luke Vine had seized his hands, and was gazing imploringly at him.
“Forgive me, George,” he whispered. “I knew not what I said.”
“Let me be alone—for a while,” faltered his brother. “I am weak. I cannot bear it now.”