“The child?”
“Ay; but a child no longer,” hastily interrupted Gray. “Years have now rolled on, and the child that was, has in the due progress of time passed that age and become a dangerous enemy to you. An enemy only controlled by me. I am as one holding in my grasp the thunderbolt which, were I for a moment to let loose, would rush with fearful certainty at your devoted head. I—but I want your proposal, squire—I am willing to accede to some terms, but they must be to me, both safe and profitable.”
Learmont was silent for some moments, then he said,—
“Tell me your demand, Jacob Gray, and at large particularise your proposal.”
“Nay, squire, I repeat I have no proposal—none whatever—but I have bethought me that danger threatens around us, and that some day when the horizon of our fortunes may appear unclouded, a storm may come which will sweep us to destruction.”
Learmont groaned, and then fixing his eyes upon Gray, he said with a fearful and intense earnestness,—
“Jacob Gray, you are a man of crimes—you have shed blood more causelessly than I—and I would ask you if ever in your solitude, when none have been near you, you have seen or heard—”
Gray licked his parched lips, as he said with trembling apprehension,—
“What—what mean you, squire? I—I have seen nothing—heard nothing, ’Twas Andrew Britton struck the blow—he—he did it.”
“Peace, peace!” cried Learmont; “nor with a hollow sophistry try to cleanse your soul of the deep spots that eat, like a wild splash of burning lava, to its inmost part.”