"But, father, think! Be merciful." "Think? I dare not, girl. Merciful? No. He is no longer my son. We must bear the disgrace as best we can; hide our shame elsewhere. You and I, father and sister of a miserable convict, who in the pursuit of money and title could stoop to rob." "No, no, father; not rob." "Scoundrel! don't speak, or I may forget myself, and strike you down as you struck down your benefactor, the man who stretched out his hand to save you from the ruin that dogged your heels." "It was a miserable accident, father. I did not steal." "Bah! Lies come easily to such as you; but I have no words to waste, there is no time for that." "No, father; quick, before it is too late," whispered Louise. "Let him go; let him escape to France--to repent, father. He is your son." "No. I disown him. And you counsel this--you, girl?" "Yes, father, you will spare him," sobbed Louise; "he is my brother." "He has broken those ties; neither son nor brother to us, my child. He has blasted your future by branding you as a convict's sister, and embittered the few years left to me, so that I would gladly end them now." "Father!" "Hush, my child! I am rightly punished for my weakness. I hoped that he would change. I was not blind, only patient, for I said that these follies would soon pass, and now I am awakened to this. My son in the hands of the police!" he laughed in a wild, discordant tone. "Monsieur Le Comte des Vignes, I must have been mad." "Go!" said Harry, fiercely. "Trample me down. There, let me pass. Better in the hands of the police than here." "No, no!" cried Louise excitedly. "Father, he must escape. It is one great horror, do not make it worse by letting him go there." "Worse, girl? there is no worse!" cried Vine, sternly. "I thank my God that we are living in a land where stern good laws are pre-eminent, and where justice rules with unswerving hand. You know not what you say." "Yes, father--dearest father, help him to go and repent the evil he has done." "Go and repent? Yes, that is the only hope; but it shall be as the honest repentant man, ready to acknowledge and bear the punishment of his crime." "Father!" "Yes; look at him--look at the base, cowering wretch, ready to go and hide his face in any shelter to escape the fate he has earned! Look at his guilty conscience, branding him even now! And you say, let him go!" "Yes, father. What could I say?" "Nothing!" cried Harry, turning round, as the trampled worm turns beneath the boot that crushes it into the earth. "It is true; I struck poor old Van Heldre down; but whatever I may have thought before, I did not go to steal that money. I did not steal it. And now what do you want me to do?"