"Fool!" said the old man, with contempt, "did you think I meant red drops that human eyes could see? No. But in the sight of God they are dripping with the stains of a foul murder. I read your guilt in your skulking eyes, your impudent assumption of brazen effrontery, your falsehoods. Ah, you will not get out of this hole as easily as you pretend to think. There is but one road open from here before you."
"What is that, father?" asked Silas, tremblingly, for he had already begun to lose the fictitious nerve that had hitherto sustained him.
"The gallows!" responded the grim old man, sternly.
"Oh, for the Lord's sake, don't talk like that!" pleaded the young wretch, with a piteous howl. "It's all your fault, anyway. You wouldn't let me have any more money, and I was hard up. You told me the Van Deusts had a mint of money. I didn't mean to harm anybody, but he jumped out of bed and clinched me; the jimmy was in my hand, and I was afraid of being caught, and I—Oh! my God! what have I said? You've got me all unnerved, with your cursed croaking. I didn't know what I was saying. It wasn't true. I haven't been in a mile of Van Deusts' for more'n three years. I don't know who killed Jake Van Deust any more'n you do. Dorn Hackett did it. Why don't they hang him, curse him! and be done with it!"
He was crying, trembling. The unhappy father bowed his face in his hands and was silent a long time, while Silas went rambling on:
"I can prove I was in New York that night. There's lots of the fellers will swear me out of it. What if I did have the seal? Didn't Dorn have the handkerchief? I know where I got it. I buy'ed it one night from a stranger that got broke in a faro bank. I can get fellers to swear they see me buy it. All I want is a lawyer. You've got to get me one—a good one. You will, won't you? I'm broke or I wouldn't ask you. I've had awful bad luck lately. But I'll pay you back when I get out. And you wouldn't see your son h—h—hanged, would you?"
Uncle Thatcher raised his head and, looking fixedly at his son, asked slowly:
"Why did you come here to-day?"
"I don't know," answered Silas, almost with desperation. "Because I am a damned fool, I suppose. I met Lem Pawlett in the city, and he told me about the trial, and—somehow—I had to come. I couldn't keep away."
"And you still think that a lawyer could get you out?"