“Blame! ay, shame an' blame—sin an' sorrow there is an' ought to rest upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin'! Blame! surely, an' as I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be a just God in Heaven, if she's not yet punished for holdin' this guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle's blood—my brother's blood—on his hand of murdher—”
“It's false,” replied the young fellow, with kindling eye; “it's false, from your teeth to your marrow. I know my father's heart an' his thought—an' I say that whoever charges him with the murder of your brother, is a liar—a false and damnable li—”
He checked himself ere he closed the sentence.
“Jerry Sullivan,” said he, in an altered voice, “I ax your pardon for the words—-it's but natural you should feel as you do; but if it was any other man than yourself that brought the charge of blood against my father, I would thramp upon him where he stands.”
“An' maybe murdher him, as my poor brother was murdhered. Dalton, I see the love of blood in your eye,” replied Sullivan, bitterly.
“Why,” replied the other, “you have no proof that the man was murdered at all. His body was never found; and no one can say what became of him. For all that any one knows to the contrary, he may be alive still.”
“Begone, sirra,” said Sullivan, in a burst of impetuous resentment which he could not restrain, “if I ever know you to open your lips to that daughter of mine—if the mane crature can be my daughter—I'll make it be the blackest deed but one that ever a Dalton did; and as for you—go in at wonst—I'll make you hear me by and by.”
Dalton looked at him once more with a kindling but a smiling eye.