It may have been a very low default on my part. But when my worst enemy lies on the ground, I would rather lift him up, than walk over him. My uncle was of sterner stuff, or less live softness—for his injury had been more deadly. He tried to drag me forward; but I would not budge, though I might make a beggar of myself by that refusal.
“Are you afraid to look at death, you white-livered young fool?” he whispered, and his face was black with the pitch of fury.
“I have been through ten times worse than death,” I answered, looking at him steadfastly; “and the lesson I have learned is mercy.”
Before he could answer, with the bitterness of justice, which to him was greater, two young women ran across the grass, and they both caught hold of me and shrieked. I could not make out what they said, because it was mixed up with sobs, and they cried both together; but I left myself to them, and they drew me on to the place where their mother lay stretched upon the walk, with a medical man bending over her.
“Dr. Wiggins?” he asked; and I answered, “No, not a doctor at all.” And he said, “Clear out; I shall take the four ounces on my own responsibility.”
“A friend of the family. A true friend of the family,” Miss Jerry exclaimed, to my great surprise; but he answered—“Then let him get out of the way; and the sooner you go away too, the better.”
The sour-faced woman, a faithful retainer, was supporting the poor lady’s head on a cushion; and I scarcely allowed myself a glance at the proud face, now so deathly. But that one glance told me for ever what all human pride must come to.
“Oh, come and see Downy! He can’t be dead too. Oh, come, and forgive him before he is dead.”
Which of the girls said this I know not. But I took up my hat, which I had thrown on the grass, and followed them to their brother.
There lay the man who had robbed me of my wife, the cold-blooded, godless miscreant, robbed by his own hand for ever of all hope of due repentance. Within a few yards of him lay his poor father, dead as a stone, and cold as ice, slain by the wickedness he had begotten, shot through the heart by his heartless son.