Kit. Well, sir, and now?
Gaunt. I find you here in my house at this untimely and unseemly hour; I find you there in company with one who, to my assured knowledge, should long since have swung in the wind at Execution Dock. What brought you? Why did you open my door while I slept to such a companion? Christopher French, I have two treasures. One (laying his hand on Arethusa’s shoulder) I know you covet. Christopher, is this your love?
Kit. Sir, I have been fooled and trapped. That man declared he knew you, declared he could make you change your mind about our marriage. I was drunk, sir, and I believed him: heaven knows I am sober now, and can see my folly; but I believed him then, and followed him. He brought me here, he told me your chest was full of gold that would make men of us for life. At that I saw my fault, sir, and drew my cutlass; and he, in the wink of an eye, roared out for help, leaped at my throat like a weasel and had me rolling on the floor. He was quick, and I, as I tell you, sir, was off my balance.
Gaunt. Is this man, Pew, your enemy?
Kit. No sir; I never saw him till to-night.
Gaunt. Then, if you must stand the justice of your country, come to the proof with a better plea. What? lantern and cutlass yours; you the one that knew the house; you the one that saw; you the one overtaken and denounced; and you spin me a galley yarn like that? If that is all your defence, you’ll hang, sir, hang.
Arethusa. Ah! Father, I give him up: I will never see him, never speak to him, never think of him again; I take him from my heart; I give myself wholly up to you and to my mother; I will obey you in every point—O, not at a word merely—at a finger raised! I will do all this; I will do anything—anything you bid me; I swear it in the face of heaven. Only—Kit! I love him, father, I love him. Let him go.
[Gaunt. Go?
Arethusa. You let the other. Open the door again—for my sake, father—in my mother’s name—O, open the door and let him go.]
Kit. Let me go? My girl, if you had cast me out is morning, good and well: I would have left you, though it broke my heart. But it’s a changed story now; now I’m down on my luck, and you come and stab me from behind. I ask no favour, and I’ll take none; I stand here on my innocence, and God helping me I’ll clear my good name, and get your love again, if it’s love worth having. [Now, Captain Gaunt, I’ve said my say, and you may do your pleasure. I am my father’s son, and I never feared to face the truth.