"She is not my daughter, and you know it. She is a pauper's nameless brat, foisted upon me by you, by you, she-devil, so that you might be able to twit and laugh at me, to revel in the sight of my discomfiture, before you sink into the grave. _This_ was your vengeance upon me, was it--your vengeance upon me for not having been more your victim than I was, though God knows I paid dear enough for my folly! _This_ is what your innuendoes and mysterious speeches of yesterday hinted at, though I was too dull to understand them." "What makes you think she is less than your daughter?" asked Mrs. Layburne, with a mocking smile, a smile that seemed to gloat over the Squire's agony of rage. "What?--this," pointing to the naked shoulder, from which kerchief and bodice had been so rudely wrenched away. "This scar, which _you_ pointed out to me when first this beggar-brat was brought into my house. 'You may always know her by that mark,' you said: ''twill last her lifetime.' And I forgot all about the mark, and loved the impostor that was foisted upon me, and believed in her, and toiled for her, and schemed for her as my very daughter. It flashed upon me all at once--the memory of that scar, and your words and voice as you showed it--just now, when her husband yonder told me what his wife is; and I knew in a moment that I had been duped. Why did you do this thing, Barbara?" "Why? To be even with you, as I told you I would be--ay, swore it by my mother's grave, when you forsook me to marry a fine lady. I told you I would have my revenge, and I have lived to enjoy it. Mr. Durnford has only anticipated my confession. I should have told you everything upon my death-bed. I have feasted upon the bare thought of that parting hour, when you should learn how your discarded mistress had tricked you." "Devil!" muttered Bosworth. "What had you to gain by such an infamy?" "Everything! Revenge! 'the most luscious morsel that the devil puts into the sinner's mouth.' That is what the Preacher says of it. I have tasted that sweet morsel, chewed and mumbled it many a time by anticipation, as I have sat by this desolate hearth. It has been sweeter to me than the applause of the playhouse, the lights, the music, the flattery, the jewels, and savoury suppers, and wines, and rioting. I have watched your growing love for another man's child, while your own, your _wife's_ child, lay mouldering in her grave. I have seen you gloating over your schemes for a spurious daughter's aggrandisement--heard you praise her beauty and boast of her likeness to your ancestors. Poor fool, poor fool! To think that a man of the world, a speculator of 'Change Alley, could be so easily hoodwinked!" "When was the change made?" asked Bosworth, ringing the bell furiously. "Bridget must have been concerned in it. I will prosecute you both for felony." "Prosecute a dying woman! fie for shame, Squire! Where is your humanity?"