"If you speak the truth--if he possess a spark of those feelings which, as a soldier, you have a right to believe may animate him, do you think that he would return your fire? He raves about remorse in that tissue of infamous falsehoods which you put into my hands; if he be human, he must have some touch of that; and he could not, if he would, raise his weapon against the child of poor Alithea. He will therefore refuse to meet you, or, meeting you, refuse to fire; and either it will end in a farce for the amusement of the world, or you will shoot a defenceless man. I do not see the mercy of this proceeding." "Of that, sir," said Neville, "we must take our chance." "I will take no chance," cried his father. "My unfortunate wife was borne off forcibly from her home; you can bear witness to that. Two men carried her away, and no tidings ever again reached us of her fate. And now one of these men, the arch criminal, chooses to gloss over these circumstances, events, as pleases him; tells his own story, giving it such graces of style as may dupe the inexperienced, and we are to rest satisfied, and say, It is so. The absurdity of such conduct would mark us as madmen. Enough of this; I have reasoned with you as if the decision lay with me; when, in fact, I have no voice on the subject. It is out of my hands; I have made it over to the law, and we can but stand by and view its course. I believe, and before Heaven and your country you must assert the same, that the remains we have uncovered are all that is left us of your lost mother; the clandestine burial at once declares the guilt of murder; such must be the opinion of impartial judges, if I mistake not. I can interfere no further. The truth will be sifted by three juries; this is no hole-and-corner vengeance; let our enemy escape, in God's name, if they acquit him; but, if he be guilty, then let him die, as I believe he will, a felon's death." Sir Boyvill looked on his son with glassy eyes, but a sneering lip, that spoke of the cruel triumph he desired. "There is Ravenglass," he added, "there the coroner is summoned--there the court meets. We go to give our deposition. We shall not lie, nor pervert facts; we tell who it was revealed to us your mother's unknown grave; it rests with them to decide whether he, who by his own avowal placed her therein, has not the crime of murder on his soul." CHAPTER XXXVI