‘Don’t waste your breath, Ferdinand Sivewright. I know you!’ said the old man, with brief bitterness. ‘Nay, I cannot conceive it possible that you should repulse me,’ replied the son in a tone of infinite persuasion. That power of music and expression which was the man’s chief gift lent a strange magic to his tones; only a deep conviction of his falsehood could arm a father’s heart against him. ‘I have made my way to you with extremest difficulty—indeed only by subterfuge—so closely was your door shut against me—against me, your only son, returned, as if from the grave itself, to plead for pardon.’ ‘And to rob me,’ said Homer Sivewright, with a harsh laugh. ‘What opportunity have I had for that? I only arrived at Liverpool from America three days ago. Why should I rob you of what, in the natural course of events, must be my own by and by? Grant that I wronged you in the past, all that I took was at least in some part my own, my own, by your direct admission, in the future, if not mine in the present; and could a boy perceive the nice distinction between actual and prospective possession?’ ‘You were not a boy when you drugged me in order to steal the key of my iron safe,’ said the father in a tone that betrayed no wavering of intention. ‘I might have forgiven the robbery. I swore at the time that I would never forgive the opiate. And I mean to keep my oath. I said then, and I believe now, that a man who would do that would, with as little compunction, poison me.’ Ferdinand Sivewright was standing only a few paces from the half-open door, so near that Lucius heard his quickened breathing at this point, heard even the fierce beating of that wicked heart.