“Know you at what cost?” cried the old man, with inflamed eyes and clenched hands.
“Your favour, and my stipend,” replied Mark, firmly, “I sacrifice the two, but I regain my independence, and take to my heart the only woman I shall ever love.”
“You have omitted one thing, one tremendous item,” ejaculated old Wilton, with heaving chest—“my curse!”
“No,” cried Mark, in a clear firm tone, “that will never leave your lips. Sir, I have seen in my short life that curses, like birds, come home to roost. Do not you try the experiment.”
Mark once more turned to quit the spot.
“Mark, boy, wretch!” shrieked his father, “pause—you—you will not—dare—dare not marry the artful, designing, infamous creature who had infatuated—cozened you—”
“When you speak of her, use gentler terms, sir,” fiercely interrupted Mark. “She is entitled to the profoundest respect of the noblest man alive, and I will suffer no one to breathe a contumelious word respecting her in my hearing.”
“If you persist, my bitterest curse shall cling to your footsteps, and drag you down through palsying vice and debasing misery to perdition!” almost yelled Wilton.
“Pause!” interposed Mark, in a loud tone. “If you will curse me, wait until you return to your library. There, sir, alone with that exquisitely truthful representative of my sainted mother, sink upon your knees, and, with your eyes bent on her soft, loving, tender orbs, call down your curse upon me—if you have the heart to do it. Farewell, sir! When we meet again, you shall yourself appoint the interview.”
Once more he quitted him, with a rapid step, and Wilton staggered almost senseless back against the stem of a tree. The old man gasped for breath, and wrung his hands.