At this, burst out the anathema--not merely of the father, but the clergyman,--who mingled the Jewish doctrine of retributive vengeance during this life with the Christian belief of rewards and punishments after death, and confounded the Mosaic gehenna with the Calvinistic hell. I will not record all this--it was very terrible; but he only spoke as he believed, and as many earnest Christians do believe. I think, in all humility, that the Master Himself preached a different gospel. I saw it, shining out of her eyes--my angel of peace and pardon. O Thou, from whom all love comes, was it impious if the love of this Thy creature towards one so wretched, should come to me like an assurance of Thine? At length her father ceased speaking--took up a pen and began hastily writing. Miss Johnston went and looked over his shoulder. "Papa, if that is a warrant you are making-out, better think twice about it; for, as a magistrate, you cannot retract. Should you send Dr. Urquhart to trial, you must be prepared for the whole truth to come out. He must tell it; or, if he calls Dora and me as witnesses--she having already his written confession in full--_we_ must." "You must tell--what?" "The provocation Doctor Urquhart received--how Harry enticed him, a lad of nineteen, to drink--made him mad, and taunted him. Everything will be made public--how Harry was so degraded that from the hour of his death we were thankful to forget that he had ever existed--how he died as he had lived--a boaster, a coward, spunging upon any one from whom he could get money, using his talents only to his shame, devoid of one spark of honesty, honour, and generosity. It is shocking to have to say this of one's own brother; but, father, you know it is the truth--and, as such, it must be told." Amazed--I listened to her--this eldest sister, who I knew disliked me. Her father seemed equally surprised,--until, at length, her arguments apparently struck him with uneasiness. "Have you any motive in arguing thus?" said he, hurriedly and not without agitation; "why do you do it, Penelope!" "A little, on my own account, though the great scandal and publicity will not much affect Francis and me--we shall soon be out of England. But for the family's sake,--for Harry's sake,--when all his wickednesses and our miseries have been safely covered up these twenty years--consider, father!" She stung him deeper than she knew. I had guessed it before, when I was almost a stranger to him--but now the whole history of that old man's life was betrayed in one groan, which burst from the very depth of the father's soul. "Eli--the priest of the Lord--his sons made themselves vile and he restrained them not. Therefore they died in one day, both of them. It was the will of the Lord." The respectful silence which ensued, no one dared to break.