“Who's the robber now, Mr. Folliard?” he asked, with something, however, of a doubtful triumph in his red glaring eye. “Your daughter had jewels in a black cabinet, and I'd have secured the same jewels and your daughter along with them, on a certain night, only for Reilly; and it was very natural he should out-general me, which he did; but it was only to get both for himself. Let him be searched at wanst, and, although I don't say he has them, yet I'd give a hundred to one he has; she would never carry them while he was with her.”
The old squire, who would now, with peculiar pleasure, have acted in the capacity of hangman in Reilly's case, had that unfortunate young man been doomed to undergo the penalty of the law, and that no person in the shape of Jack Ketch was forthcoming—he, we say—the squire—started at once to the room where Reilly was secured, accompanied also by the sheriff, and, after rushing in with a countenance inflamed by passion, shouted out:
“Seize and examine that villain; he has robbed me—examine him instantly: he has stolen the family jewels.”
Reilly's countenance fell, for he knew his Fearful position; but that which weighed heaviest upon his heart was a consciousness of the misinterpretations which the world might put upon the motives of his conduct in this elopement, imputing it to selfishness and a mercenary spirit. When about to be searched, he said:
“You need not; I will not submit to the indignity of such an examination. I have and hold the jewels for Miss Folliard, whose individual property I believe they are; nay, I am certain of it, because she told me so, and requested me to keep them For her. Let her be sent for, and I shall hand them back to her at once, but to no other person without violence.”
“But she is not in a condition to receive them,” replied the sheriff (which was a fact); “I pledge my honor she, is not.”
“Well, then, Mr. Sheriff, I place them in your hands; you can do with them as you wish—that is, either return them to Miss Folliard, the legal owner of them, or to her father.”
The sheriff received the caske't which contained them, and immediately handed it to Mr. Folliard, who put it in his pocket, exclaiming:
“Now, Reilly, if we can hang you for nothing else, we can hang you for this; and we will, sir.”
“You, sir,” said Reilly, with melancholy indignation, “are privileged to insult me; so, alas! is every man now; but I can retire into the integrity of my own heart and find a consolation there of which you cannot deprive me. My life is now a consideration of no importance to myself since I shall die with the consciousness that your daughter loved me. You do not hear this for the first time, for that daughter avowed it to yourself! and if I had been mean and unprincipled enough to have abandoned my religion, and that of my persecuted forefathers, I might ere this have been her husband.”