"Curse me not—curse not!" cried Henrietta, with anguish in her voice, "The doom, God knows, is heavy enough already."
"Curse you!" said the astonished Roger, "you, to whom I owe more than my own life a thousand times. Nay, Mistress Henrietta, what madness has made you fear it?"
"I fear! I fear! Why should I not?" sobbed Henrietta. "The sin of the parents shall be visited on the children, and he is my father, after all!"
"Your father! your father!" Roger muttered, trying to keep down the storm of passion that was choking him. "Well, well, he is, as you say, your father, and so I must perforce be silent."
"Alas! alas!" Henrietta pleaded, "if you did but know the completeness of his religious mania, you would also comprehend how easily a man, merciful in all things else, can in this one thing be merciless."
"Nay," said Roger bitterly; "it needs, I think, no great stretch of intellect to understand it thoroughly. A man, fresh from the siege of Tredagh, where children were dashed from the battlements, lest, 'like nits, they should become troublesome if suffered to increase,' will, doubtless, merely consider the holocaust of human life which lies buried beneath yonder ruins as a whole burnt-offering, smelling sweet in the nostrils of the Lord, which he, as his high-priest, has been deputed to offer up."
He broke off suddenly, for a hand was laid upon his arm, and a white face lifted pleadingly to his. "Speak not thus of her father," whispered Nellie. "Speak not thus; see how she is weeping!"
"Her tears are his best plea for mercy, then," said he in a gentler tone, and seizing the oars, he began to row as vigorously as if he hoped to quiet his boiling spirit by the mere fact of bodily exhaustion. Nellie made no answer, and silence fell upon them all.
The deed just done was not of a nature lightly to be forgotten, and they went quietly on their way, as people will, upon whom the shadow of a great terror still hangs heavily. Just, however, as they entered the harbor of Clare Island, Nellie caught sight of a well-known figure, and uttered a cry of joy. It was Hamish, and, in her impatience, she scarcely waited until the boat was fastened ere she was at his side. But there was no gladness in his eye as he turned to greet her. He was deadly pale, and his left arm hung powerless at his side. Nellie saw nothing of this at first, however, she was thinking so entirely of her mother.
"Is she come, dear Hamish?" she cried. "Where is she?"