“Ha! ha! ha!” wildly laughed the still intensely excited squire, when he had regained his breath. “You may well look surprised. Methinks I can astonish you still more. Listen! I followed you, years ago, when you made your trip after the death of your darling. I tried to steal your child—her child, and put my own nephew in his place. But that cursed nurse of yours was too quick for me, and I only got a sore and aching head for my pains. Yes, yes,” he hissed, as he saw the light beginning to break over Mr. Ellerton’s face. “It was probably the fright I gave her that caused her death. You possibly remember how hard she tried to tell you something when she was dying? Yes, well, that was it. And had you not suddenly disappeared from the place, I should have tried another grab at the youngster.” “Villain, do you mean to tell me that you have allowed such a pitiful jealousy to lead you to such crimes? Beware, lest they descend with tenfold force upon your own vile head!” exclaimed Mr. Ellerton, his eye flashing with angry excitement. “Ha! you are beginning to be touched, are you? Good! that is what I came here to-day for. I want to see you cringe beneath my power. It is very sweet to me to see you so; it quiets my nerves, and fills my heart with exultant joy, and I trust to see your proud head bowed still lower before I have done with you,” sneered the monster. “Leave my presence, vile fiend! I will not be polluted by so evil a thing,” commanded Mr. Ellerton, angrily. “Not quite so fast, my lord,” replied the squire, mockingly. “I have not yet finished my interesting narrative. I would like to give you a list of the things I have done, rather than of those I have tried to accomplish. I reckon I gave your pride a severe blow when I married your only child to a beggar. You may look as lofty and scornful as you choose, but for all that I knew it cut deep, as I meant it should, else you would not have separated them, and banished your boy from his home and his native land——” “Hold, you scoundrel!” shouted the now thoroughly enraged man, but with a gleam of triumph in his eye. “Hold! and let me tell you for your benefit, that the girl is not a beggar, as you imagine, but the sole heiress of hundreds of thousands, and that, if my son chose to claim her to-day, he would have my full and free consent to do so. How does that compare with the heavy blow to my pride that you tell about?” Squire Moulton threw back his grizzled head and laughed a long, loud, and scornful laugh, making the dull and unearthly echo ring again and again through the dim, low vaults. It was the utter abandonment of the most fiendish joy, and his captive, goaded almost to madness by its mocking tones, gazed upon him with a look in which perplexity, fear, and anger were mingled.