A wild laugh sounded in his ears: both started; and, on turning round, beheld Mary standing quietly beside them. Mathews surveyed his sister with a stern searching glance. She smiled contemptuously; but drew back, as if she feared him.
"Did you overhear our conversation, Mary?"
"I can keep my own secrets," said the girl, sullenly. "I don't want to be burthened with yours. They are not worth the trouble of keeping. My sleep is bad enough already. A knowledge of your deeds, William, would not make it sounder."
"It would make you sleep so soundly that evil thoughts would not be likely to keep you awake," said her brother, clenching his fist in her face. "Betray but one syllable of what you have overheard, and your bed is prepared for you."
"I do not care how soon," said Mary; "if you hold out such a temptation, I don't know what I might be tempted to do. They say that the sins of the murdered are all visited upon the murderer. What a comfort it would be to transfer mine to you." This was said in a tone of bitter irony; and, however unwilling to betray himself, it seemed to produce a strange effect upon the mind of the ruffian.
"Who talks of murder?" he said. "You are dreaming. Go to your bed, Mary. It is late; and don't forget to say your prayers."
"Prayers!" said the girl with a mocking laugh. "The prayers of the wicked never come up before the throne of God. My prayers would sound in my own ears like blasphemy. How would they sound in the ears of God?"
"Don't talk in that way, Mary; you make my flesh creep," said Mathews. "I have never said a prayer since I was a boy at my mother's knee, and that was before Mary was born. Had mother lived I should not have been what I now am; and poor Mary—." He paused; there was a touch of tenderness in the ruffian's tone and manner. The remembrance of that mother's love seemed the only holy thing that had ever been impressed upon his mind; and sunk even as he was in guilt, and hardened in crime, had he followed its suggestions it would have led him back to God, and made him the protector, instead of the base vendor of his sister's honor.
"What is the use of dwelling upon the past?" said Godfrey, pettishly. "We were all very good little boys once. At least my father always told me so; and by the strange contradictions which abound in human nature, I suppose that that was the very reason which made me grow up a bad man. And bad men we both are, Mathews, in the world's acceptation, and we may as well make the most we can of our acquired reputation."
"Now I would like to know," said Mathews, gloomily, "if you have ever felt a qualm of conscience in your life?"