'What I said, I said in self-defence; after you, in your deceit, had brought wrong upon me and my family,' she answered in a subdued voice.
'That was no wrong,' retorted Mr. Hunter, 'It was you who wrought all the wrong afterwards, by uttering the terrible falsehood, that she was dead.'
'Well, well, it is of no use going back to that,' she impatiently said. 'I am come here to ask that justice shall be rendered, now that it is in your power.'
'You have had more than justice—you have had revenge. Not content with rendering my days a life's misery, you must also drain me of the money I had worked hard to save. Do you know how much?'
'It was not I,' she passionately uttered, in a tone as if she would deprecate his anger. 'He did that.'
'It comes to the same. I had to find the money. So long as my dear wife lived, I was forced to temporize: neither he nor you can so force me again. Go home, go home, Miss Gwinn, and pray for forgiveness for the injury you have done both her and me. The time for coming to my house with your intimidations is past.'
'What did you say?' cried Miss Gwinn. 'Injury upon you?'
'Injury, ay! such as rarely has been inflicted upon mortal man. Not content with that great injury, you must also deprive me of my substance. This week the name of James Lewis Hunter will be in the Gazette, on the list of bankrupts. It is you who have brought me to it.'
'You know that I have had no hand in that; that it was he: my brother—and hers,' she said. 'He never should have done it had I been able to prevent him. In an unguarded moment I told him I had discovered you, and who you were, and—and he came up to you here and sold his silence. It is that which has kept me quiet.'