“Prove it to me, Justin,” Everard pleaded. “Prove it by abandoning this weakness where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. Remember only the wrong he has done. You are the incarnation of that wrong, and by your hand must he be destroyed.” He rose, and caught the younger man's hands again in his own, forced Mr. Caryll to confront him. “He shall know when the time comes whose hand it was that pulled him down; he shall know the Nemesis that has lain in wait for him these thirty years to smite him at the end. And he shall taste hell in this world before he goes to it in the next. It is God's own justice, boy! Will you be false to the duty that lies before you? Will you forget your mother and her sufferings because you have looked into the eyes of this girl, who—”
“No, no! Say no more!” cried Mr. Caryll, his voice trembling.
“You will do it,” said Sir Richard, between question and assertion.
“If Heaven lends me strength of purpose. But it asks much,” was the gloomy answer. “I am to see Lord Ostermore to-morrow to obtain his answer to King James' letter.”
Sir Richard's eyes gleamed. He released the other's hands, and turned slowly to his chair again. “It is well,” he said slowly. “The thing asks dispatch, or else some of his majesty's real friends may be involved.”
He proceeded to explain his words. “I have talked in vain with Atterbury. He will not abandon the enterprise even at King James' commands. He urges that his majesty can have no conception of how the matter is advanced; that he has been laboring like Hercules, and that the party is being swelled by men of weight and substance every day; that it is too late to go back, and that he will go forward with the king's consent or without it. Should he or his agents approach Ostermore, in the meantime, it will be too late for us to take such measures as we have concerted. For to deliver up Ostermore then would entail the betrayal of others, which is not to be dreamt of. So you'll use dispatch.”
“If I do the thing at all, it shall be done to-morrow,” answered Mr. Caryll.
“If at all?” cried Sir Richard, frowning again. “If at all?”
Caryll turned to him. He crossed to the table, and leaning across it, until his face was quite close to his adoptive father's. “Sir Richard,” he begged, “let us say no more to-night. My will is all to do the thing. It is my—my instincts that rebel. I think that the day will be carried by my will. I shall strive to that end, believe me. But let us say no more now.”
Sir Richard, looking deep into Mr. Caryll's eyes, was touched by something that he saw. “My poor Justin!” he said gently. Then, checking the sympathy as swiftly as it rose: “So be it, then,” he said briskly. “You'll come to me to-morrow after you have seen his lordship?”