"You are right, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Juliet. "Such a woman was unworthy of your father. Poor Anthony, he has been very unfortunate in his parents; yet I hoped of him better things."
"You think, Mr. Godfrey, that there is no doubt of his guilt?" asked Miss Dorothy.
"The girl must know best," returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, not man-like women."
"He is a scoundrel!" cried the Captain, throwing down his pipe with a sound that made his daughter start. "He shall never darken my doors again, and so you may tell him, Mr. Godfrey, from me!"
"This is a severe sentence, but he deserves it!" said Godfrey. "I fear my father will one day repent that he ever fostered this viper in his bosom. Yet, strange to say, he always preferred him to me. Report says that there is a stronger tie between them, but this is a base slander upon the generous nature of my father. He loved Anthony's mother better than he did mine; and he loves her son better than he does me."
"Poor lad," said the Captain, warmly grasping his hand, "You have been unkindly treated among them; and you shall always find a friend and a father in me."
Godfrey was a little ashamed of his duplicity, and would gladly, if possible, have recalled that disgraceful scene; but having so far committed himself, he no longer regarded the consequences; but he determined to bear it out with the most hardened effrontery.
Whilst the victim of his diabolical art was writhing upon a sick bed under the most acute mental and bodily pain, the author of his suffering was enjoying the most flattering demonstrations of regard, which were lavishly bestowed upon him by the inhabitants of the Lodge. But the vengeance of Heaven never sleeps, and though the stratagems of wicked men may for a time prove successful, the end generally proves the truth of the apostle's awful denunciation: "The wages of sin is death."