“‘Let me go!’ he shouted, foaming at the mouth with rage—‘that man murdered my brother! I will take the law into my own hands! he shall not leave this spot alive! He dares to come here in the presence of the dead body of George Conway—and he is his murderer!’
“These words were rather howled than uttered. The speaker seemed to have lost his reason, from pure excess of rage. If his friends had not restrained him by main force, he would have thrown himself upon me a second time, when one of us would have lost his life, colonel, for I was now as violently enraged as himself.
“That I should be thus publicly branded with the basest crime! that the representative of the old and honorable house of the Davenants, should be thus grossly insulted, his person assailed, his good name torn from him—that he should be denounced thus in the presence of all as a felon and murderer!
“‘You are insane, sir!’ I at length said, struggling to regain my coolness. ‘Your grief has affected your brain! I can pardon much in you today, sir, but beware how you again attempt to degrade me!’
“‘Hear him!’ was the hoarse and furious reply of Judge Conway; and reaching out his thin fingers, a habit he had caught from Mr. Randolph—he pointed at me where I stood.
“‘Hear him! He affects innocence! He is outraged! He is indignant! And yet he waylaid my brother, whom he has hated for twenty years—he waylaid him like an assassin, and murdered him! There is the proof!’
“And drawing from his pocket a knife, covered with clotted blood, he threw it upon the grave before all eyes.
“Good God! It was my own!”