"Forgive him!" repeated Mr. Chattaway, his voice assuming quite a hissing angry sound. "Forgive this? Never. I'll prosecute him to the extremity of the law; I'll try hard to get him condemned to penal servitude. Forgive this! You are out of your mind, Madam Chattaway."
Her breath was coming shortly, her voice rose amidst sobs, and she entwined her arms about him caressingly, imploringly, in her agony of distress and terror.
"For my sake, my husband! It would kill me to see it brought home to him. He must have been overcome by a fit of the Trevlyn temper. Oh, James! forgive him for my sake."
"I never will," deliberately replied Mr. Chattaway. "I tell you that I will prosecute him to the utmost limit of the law; I swear it. In an hour's time from this he shall be in custody."
He broke from her; she staggered against the rick, and but for Maude might have fallen. Poor Maude, who had stood and listened, her face turning to stone, her heart to despair.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A NIGHT SCENE
Alas for the Trevlyn temper! How many times has the regret to be repeated! Were the world filled with lamentations for the unhappy state of mind to which some of its mortals give way, they could not atone for the ill inflicted. It is not a pleasant topic to enlarge upon, and I have lingered in my dislike to approach it.
When Rupert leaped the palings and flew away over the field, he was totally incapable of self-government for the time being. I do not say this in extenuation. I say that such a state of things is lamentable, and ought not to be. I only state that it was so. The most passionate temper ever born with man may be kept under, where the right means are used—prayer, ever-watchful self-control, stern determination; but how few there are who find the means! Rupert Trevlyn did not. He had no clear perception of what he had done; he probably knew he had thrust the blazing torch into the rick; but he gave no thought whatever to consequences, whether the hay was undamaged or whether it burst forth into a flame.