“Let me tell you,” cried Despard, harshly. “He has not yet made atonement for his crimes. This is but the beginning. I have a debt of vengeance to extort from him. One scoundrel has been handed over to the law, another lies dead, another is in London in the hands of Langhetti’s friends, the Carbonari. The worst one yet remains, and my father’s voice cries to me day and night from that dreadful ship.”
“Your father’s voice!” cried Beatrice. She looked at Despard. Their eyes met. Something passed between them in that glance which brought back the old, mysterious feeling which she had known before. Despard rose hastily and left the room.
“In God’s name,” cried Brandon, “I say that this man’s life was not sought by me, nor the life of any of his. I will tell you all. When he compassed the death of Uracao, of whom you know, he obtained possession of his son, then a mere boy, and carried him away. He kept this lad with him and brought him up with the idea that he was his best friend, and that he would one day show him his father’s murderer. After I made myself known to him, he told Vijal that I was this murderer. Vijal tried to assassinate me. I foiled him, and could have killed him. But I spared his life. I then told him the truth. That is all that I have done. Of course, I knew that Vijal would seek for vengeance. That was not my concern. Since Potts had sent him to seek my life under a lie, I sent him away with knowledge of the truth. I do not repent that told him; nor is there any guilt chargeable to me. The man that lies dead there is not my victim. Yet if he were—oh, Beatrice! if he were—what then? Could that atone for what I have suffered? My father ruined and broken-hearted and dying in a poor-house calls to me always for vengeance. My mother suffering in the emigrant ship, and dying of the plague amidst horrors without a name calls to me. Above all my sweet sister, my pure Edith—”
“Edith!” interrupted Beatrice—“Edith!”
“Yes; do you not know that? She was buried alive.”
“What!” cried Beatrice; “is it possible that you do not know that she is alive?”
“Alive!”
“Yes, alive; for when I was at Holly I saw her.”
Brandon stood speechless with surprise.
“Langhetti saved her,” said Beatrice. “His sister has charge of her now.”