“Oh!” cried the lad, indignantly.
“Wait, my boy. No; she never believed it of me. She was forced by her relatives to accept this man. I have her dear letter—yellow and time-stained now—written a week before the appointed wedding-day which never dawned for her, my boy. She died two days before, full of faith in my honour.”
Aleck’s hands were both resting now upon his uncle’s arm, and his eyes looked dim and misty.
“There, my boy, I said I could not explain to you, and I have uncovered the old wound, laying it quite bare. Now you know what it is that has made me the old cankered, harsh, misanthropic being you know—bitter, soured, evil-tempered, and so harsh; so wanting in love for my kind that even you, my boy, my poor dead sister’s child, can’t bear to live with me any longer.”
“Uncle!” panted Aleck. “I didn’t know—”
“Let’s see,” continued the old man, with a resumption of his former fierce manner; “you said you would not run away, only go. To sea, eh?”
“Uncle,” cried Aleck, “didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Yes, quite plainly,” replied the old man, bitterly; “I heard. I don’t wonder at a lad of spirit resenting my harsh, saturnine ways. What a life for a lad like you! Well, you’ve made up your mind, and I’ll be just to you, my lad. You shall be started well. When would you like to go?”
“When you drive me away, uncle,” cried the boy, passionately. “Oh, uncle, won’t you listen to me—won’t you believe in me? How can you think me such a coward as to leave you, knowing what I do?”
The old man caught him by the shoulders, held him back at arm’s length, and stood gazing fiercely in his eyes for a few moments, and then his own began to soften, and he said, gently: