“Pitied! what the devil do you mean by that? Nobody wants your pity here.”
“Or you have been trying to deceive me; and in that case, I have to tell you that deceit is henceforth useless. I know all—more than you suspect: more, I believe, than you would wish me to have known.”
“Oh, that’s your tack, is it? By God, I expected as much the moment you came in! What! you don’t believe my girl—don’t you? You’re going to fight shy, and behave like a scamp—are you? Damn your infernal coolness and your aristocratic airs and graces! You shall see I’ll be even with you—you shall. Ha! ha! look here!—here’s the marriage certificate safe in my pocket. You won’t do the honourable by my poor child—won’t you? Come out! Come away! You’d better—I’m off to your father to blow the whole business; I am, as sure as my name’s Sherwin!”
He struck his fist on the table, and started up, livid with passion. The screen trembled a little, and a slight rustling noise was audible behind it, just as he advanced towards me. He stopped instantly, with an oath, and looked back.
“I warn you to remain here,” I said. “This morning, my father has heard all from my lips. He has renounced me as his son, and I have left his house for ever.”
He turned round quickly, staring at me with a face of mingled fury and dismay.
“Then you come to me a beggar!” he burst out; “a beggar who has taken me in about his fine family, and his fine prospects; a beggar who can’t support my child—Yes! I say it again, a beggar who looks me in the face, and talks as you do. I don’t care a damn about you or your father! I know my rights; I’m an Englishman, thank God! I know my rights, and my Margaret’s rights; and I’ll have them in spite of you both. Yes! you may stare as angry as you like; staring don’t hurt. I’m an honest man, and my girl’s an honest girl!”
I was looking at him, at that moment, with the contempt that I really felt; his rage produced no other sensation in me. All higher and quicker emotions seemed to have been dried at their sources by the events of the morning.
“I say my girl’s an honest girl,” he repeated, sitting down again; “and I dare you, or anybody—I don’t care who—to prove the contrary. You told me you knew all, just now. What all? Come! we’ll have this out before we do anything else. She says she’s innocent, and I say she’s innocent: and if I could find out that damnation scoundrel Mannion, and get him here, I’d make him say it too. Now, after all that, what have you got against her?—against your lawful wife; and I’ll make you own her as such, and keep her as such, I can promise you!”
“I am not here to ask questions, or to answer them,” I replied—“my errand in this house is simply to tell you, that the miserable falsehoods contained in your letter, will avail you as little as the foul insolence of language by which you are now endeavouring to support them. I told you before, and I now tell you again, I know all. I had been inside that house, before I saw your daughter at the door; and had heard, from her voice and his voice, what such shame and misery as you cannot comprehend forbid me to repeat. To your past duplicity, and to your present violence, I have but one answer to give:—I will never see your daughter again.”