“It is the least guilty one by which I have known you,” returned Morton, firmly. “It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have seen,” continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and lip, “and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is not for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your cup. Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at least free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no expiation--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my very soul made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a career equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as I believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the abyss--my mother’s hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her voice while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and for ever!” Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his knitted brow; he now rose with an oath-- “Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the guillotine! Part--never! at least alive!” “I have said it,” said Morton, folding his arms calmly; “I say it to your face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man of blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone.” “Ah! is it so?” said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed, communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former, within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into its socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast bulk, and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: “Ho! ho! Slave and fool, once mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!” “Tempter, I defy you! stand back!” And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid his hand on the giant’s vest. Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark. “Boy,” said he, “off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush you with a hug.” “My soul supports my body, and I am armed,” said Morton, laying hand on his cutlass. “But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save my soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain upon her death-bed?” Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.