I should not have been the sullen and resentful boy I then was, if I had not planned how to utilise my strange power of disturbing the man whom I execrated, in the interest of my enmity. My system was to force him to feel the acute sensation which my presence inflicted on him, by keeping silence, and steadily pursuing him with my gaze. Great as his self-control was, I never fixed my eyes upon him from the far end of the room, but, after a while, he would turn his eyes towards me. Then his glance avoided mine, and he would go on talking; but still he was looking at me, and presently our eyes would meet, and his would shift away again. I knew, by a frown which gathered on his forehead, that he was on the point of forbidding me to look at him in that way; but then he would put strong restraint upon himself, and sometimes he would leave the room. That abstention from any kind of struggle with me was a fixed resolution on his part, I guessed, because I knew him to be very determined by nature, and especially incapable of enduring that any one should brave him. He was fond of relating how, in his youth, when he was attached to the Embassy at Madrid, he had killed a bull at an amateur "ring," on being "dared" to do it by a young Spaniard. It must have hurt his pride severely to permit me the silent insolence of my eyes; he did allow me to indulge it, however, and I did not acknowledge that petty triumph to Aunt Louise. I must set down everything here, and the truth is I was most unhappy; I knew myself to be so, and I did not lessen my trouble in the least in dilating upon it; on the contrary, I rather exaggerated it so as to win that tender sympathy which did my sore heart good. I once spoke to her of the vow I had taken, the solemn promise I had made to myself that I would discover the murderer of my father, and take vengeance upon him, and she laid her hand upon my mouth. She was a pious woman, and she repeated the words of the gospel: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." Then she added: "We must leave the punishment of the crime to Him; His will is hidden from us. Remember the divine precept and promise, 'Forgive and you shall be forgiven.' Never say: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' Ah, no; drive this enmity out of your heart, Cornélis; yes, even this." And there were tears in her eyes. VII