“Man!” the old man threatened, “Don't go too far.”
“It wasn't the fear of God which you pretend is in your heart, but the fear of man.” Dylks added with a vulgar drop from the solemn words, “You would hang for it. I haven't put myself in your power without counting all the costs to both of us.”
Gillespie waved his answer off with an impatient hand.
“Did she know you?”
“Why not? It hasn't been so long. I haven't changed so much. I wear my hair differently, and I dress better since I've been in Philadelphia. She knew me in a minute as well as I knew her. I didn't ask for her present husband; I thought one at a time was enough.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing—first. I might have told her she had been in a hurry. But if she don't bother me, I won't her. We got as far as that. And I reckon she won't, but I thought we'd better have a clear understanding, and she knows now it's bigamy in her case, and bigamy's a penitentiary offense. I made that clear. And now see here, David: I'm going to stay here in this settlement, and I don't want any trouble from you, no matter what you think of my doings, past, present, or future. I don't want you to say anything, or look anything. Don't you let on, even to that girl of yours, that you ever saw me before in your life. If you do, you'll wish you had split my head open with that ax. But I'm not afraid; I've got you safe, and I've got your sister safe.”
Gillespie groaned. Then he said desperately, “Listen here, Joseph Dylks! I know what you're after, here, because you always was: other people's money. I've got three hundred dollars saved up since I paid off the mortgage. If you'll take it and go—”
“Three hundred dollars! No, no! Keep your money, old man. I don't rob the poor.” Dylks lifted himself, and said with that air of mysterious mastery which afterwards won so many to his obedience, “I work my work. Let no man gainsay me or hinder me.” He walked to and fro in the starlight, swelling, with his head up and his mane of black hair cloudily flying over his shoulders as he turned. “I come from God.”
Gillespie looked at him as he paced back and forth. “If I didn't know you for a common scoundrel that married my sister against my will, and lived on her money till it was gone, and then left her and let her believe he was dead, I might believe you did come from God—or the Devil, you—you turkey cock, you stallion! But you can't prance me down, or snort me down. I don't agree to anything. I don't say I won't tell who you are when it suits me. I won't promise to keep it from this one or that one or any one. I'll let you go just so far, and then—”