He spoke with composure, but he kept pushing back his chair so as to be further from that on which his nephew sat--the young man, who sat looking at him, with his eyelids more raised than usual--the charming glance few were able to resist. Mr Lee kept his eyes on his face as if he were fascinated, with the same slow, steady movement still pushing back his chair, till the side of it grated against the corner of the table, and, as if the jar roused him, he sprang up to his feet. In another instant his words burst forth with vehemence, the rush of a torrent that could no longer be restrained. ‘Ah, scoundrel, hypocrite, I have let ye have your tongue that ye might have leave eno’ to convict yourself! So ye call it a foolish trifle to ’tice a young girl from her home, and then to desert her, and leave her to misery! Why, sir, I _married_ when I didn’t want to marry, because the lass believed as I’d made love to her, and ye come and boast to my face of the girl as ye have ruined, and ask me what ye’re to do and where to go. By the Lord that looks down upon ye and such like vermin, I think that I’m able to tell ye where to go. Ye may go to the devil, sir, your most fit companion, and his home, which is surely the fittest place for ye!’ He spoke, and at the same instant he advanced upon his nephew, with clenched hands, a vein-swollen forehead, and eyes darting from his head; and, as if pressed back by force, though no hand was laid upon him, James Gillan found himself retreating from the room. Shattered, overwhelmed, as one suffocated by nightmare, he heard his uncle roar to the servants to bring him his hat and coat, and, with that vision of fury still pressing on behind him, he was forced from the front-door, and out into the streets. It was all a dream .... there before him lay the valley .... a heavy pall of darkness, with innumerable points of light .... the night-wind was rushing, his brain rushed in its company, he could not remember what he should have said or done. Oh! he could not go back, there was no use in confession, he could never redeem his reputation now!