"Insult--robbery--disgrace!" continued Sir Murray, without heeding him. "Everything, in his revenge for my unhappy marriage, he heaped upon my head. Twice, for long spaces of time, I exiled myself; till now, when, after twenty years, I come back to spend the rest of my days in peace in my old home, I find my enemy's son grown up and ready, the moment I plant foot upon the English shore, to waylay me, and accost Miss Gernon with his impertinent persecution. I warned you--I sought in every way to discourage you; your own heart must have told you that every word addressed to that girl was an insult to me, and that, even would I have stooped low enough to have permitted it, any union was impossible; and, still finding in her her mother's weakness--the weakness your vile parent betrayed--you persevered. You knew, too, that she was engaged-- that I had made arrangements for a suitable marriage; and, doubtless, you found in that a good lever for moving her--telling her that she was the victim of paternal persecution. Dishonour, dishonour, dishonour! in every step dishonour, trickery, and deceit; winning upon her, by clandestine meetings, till I find that she has stooped so low as to suffer, here in a public thoroughfare, in the presence even of a menial, a low groom, what I myself witnessed--what has, before now, become the ribald jest of the servants in the Castle. I do not ask you to refrain; that, I know, is useless. I do not ask you to plead the excuse you have ready--the paltry drivellings of your _love_, as you would doubtless call it. Son of a base and cowardly trickster, you inherit all your father's villainy, and I would horsewhip you as I would some base groom, only that I look upon you as too low--too contemptible even for that!" He paused for a few minutes, as if for breath, scowling the while at Brace Norton, who, with flushed face and set teeth, stood bearing it all, whispering that one name again and again, as a talisman to guard him from forgetting himself, and, in some furious outburst of passion, striking down to his feet the lying denouncer of his family. "I know that it is in vain to appeal to you as I would to an honourable man," continued Sir Murray, pale with rage, "and here you drive me to my last resource; for sooner than that weak, drivelling girl should be your wife, I would see her in her coffin! But I have no need for that: plastic as wax in your hands, she can be plastic as clay in mine. I can mould her to my wishes, in spite of all you have done. I can treat you in the same way, even to making you give her up--now, at once, before you leave this ground. I have kept this shaft for the last, wishing to try all else first; and had I had to deal with an honourable man--with an officer and gentleman," he said sarcastically, "this shaft would never have been loosed."