“I care nothing for your prospects! It is your family I object to,” was the brusque, startling reply. Then, as if ashamed of the taunt, Mr. North went on, more gently: “I am sorry to wound your feelings, Willie; I believe you are a good boy, in the main, although it was said at one time that you were dissipated and wild. Still, you had an excuse for that—the same excuse that I have in forbidding your attentions to my daughter.”
“Mr. North!”
“I said that I forbade any more attentions to Kate. When she marries, it must be one with a stainless family record. Your sister’s fault has disgraced her family, and may do so even more terribly, for there are many who doubt that she was ever drowned, and she may reappear at any time.”
“Mr. North, are there any grounds for this belief?” the poor fellow asked hoarsely.
“A face like hers has been seen several times in Richmond lately. Some of the factory girls believe that they saw her yesterday as they came from work. She is always richly dressed, and it must be that she is leading a life of gilded shame in this city.”
A hoarse groan came from the stricken young man’s lips; then, with flashing eyes, he exclaimed:
“Then she is running a terrible risk, for only let me find her, and I will send a bullet crashing through her shameless heart!”
“No, no!” the gentleman exclaimed, recoiling in dismay, but Willie Laurens angrily reiterated his threat.
“You will see,” he said. “She wrecked my life, and I will wipe out the family disgrace in her heart’s blood.”
“You are mad, simply mad! Would you become your sister’s murderer, and break your poor mother’s heart?” cried Mr. North, shocked and pained by his furious mood, and not dreaming of the fiery fluid that had inflamed the young man’s blood. He turned away from the reckless boy, and was going abruptly out of the store when a horseman drew rein on the pavement before him, and asked excitedly: