“Cowardly! Ha! ha! ha! Cowardly!” screamed the old man, catching at his stick. “You say that—you?”
As Fred strode towards him, the old man struck him with his cane, a sharp well-directed blow across the left ear, and, stung to madness by the pain, the tall strong man caught the frail-looking old beau by the throat and bore him back into a chair, holding him with one hand while his other was clenched and raised to strike.
Volume One—Chapter Twenty Three.
Father and Daughter.
“Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life,” cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturdy soldier who held him back.
But it wanted not Claire’s hand upon Fred Denville’s arm to stay the blow. The passionate rage fled as swiftly as it had flashed up, and he tore himself away.
“You shouldn’t have struck me,” he cried in a voice full of anguish. “I couldn’t master myself. You struck her—the best and truest girl who ever breathed; and I’d rather be what I am—scamp, drunkard, common soldier, and have struck you down, than you, who gave that poor girl a cowardly blow. Claire—my girl—God bless you! I can come here no more.”
He caught her wildly in his arms, kissed her passionately, and then literally staggered out of the house, and they saw him reel by the window.