The Ballawhaine was drumming on the edge of the open door. “You are right, young man,” he said, “a woman's hysteria is of no use.”
“That will do, sir,” said Philip in a firm voice.
The Ballawhaine put his hand familiarly on Philip's shoulder. “Try Bishop Wilson's theological college, my friend; its cheap and——”
“Take your hand from him, Peter Christian,” cried Auntie Nan. Her eyes flashed, her cheeks were aflame, her little gloved hands were clenched. “You made war between his father and your father, and when I would have made peace you prevented me. Your father is dead, and your brother is dead, and both died in hate that might have died in love, only for the lies you told and the deceit you practised. But they have gone where the mask falls from all faces, and they have met before this, eye to eye, and hand to hand. Yes, and they are looking down on you now, Peter Christian, and they know you at last for what you are and always have been—a deceiver and a thief.”
By an involuntary impulse the Ballawhaine turned his eyes upward to the ceiling while she spoke, as if he had expected to see the ghosts of his father and his brother threatening him.
“Is the woman mad at all?” he cried; and the timid old lady, lifted out of herself by the flame of her anger, blazed at him again with a tongue of fire.
“You have done wrong, Peter Christian, much wrong; you've done wrong all your days, and whatever your motive, God will find it out, and on that secret place he will bring your punishment. If it was only greed, you've got your wages; but no good will they bring to you, for another will spend them, and you will see them wasted like water from the ragged rock. And if it was hate as well, you will live till it comes back on your own head like burning coal. I know it, I feel it,” she cried, sweeping into the hall, “and sorry I am to say it before your own son, who ought to honour and respect his father, but can't; no, he can't and never will, or else he has a heart to match your own in wickedness, and no bowels of compassion at him either.”
“Come, Auntie, come,” said Philip, putting his arm about the old lady's waist. But she swerved round again to where the Ballawhaine came slinking behind him.
“Turn me out of the house, will you?” she cried. “The place where I lived fifteen years, and as mistress, too, until your evil deeds made you master. Many a good cry I've had that it's only a woman I am, and can do nothing on my own head. But I would rather be a woman that hasn't a roof to cover her than a man that can't warm to his own flesh and blood. Don't think I begrudge you your house, Peter Christian, though it was my old home, and I love it, for all I'm shown no respect in it I would have you to know, sir, that it isn't our houses we live in after all, but our hearts—our hearts, Peter Christian—do you hear me?—our hearts, and yours is full of darkness and dirt—and always will be, always will be.”
“Come, come, Auntie, come,” cried Philip again, and the sweet old thing, too gentle to hurt a fly, turned on him also with the fury of a wild-cat.