“If you have paid me this visit, sir, only for the purpose of uttering language which you know must be very painful to me, I would rather you had declined to call upon me at all. I perceive no object you can have in it, unless to gratify a feeling of enmity on your part, and excite one of sorrow on mine. I say sorrow, because, on considering our relative positions, and knowing the impetuosity of your temper, I am sorry to see you here; it is scarcely generous in you to come, for the purpose of indulging in a poor, and what, after all, may be an equivocal and premature triumph over a man whose love for your daughter, you must know, will seal his lips against the expression of one offensive word towards you.” “But how, let me ask, sir, do you know what brought me here? I didn't come to scold you, nor to triumph over you; and I have already said the worst I shall say. I know very well that you and Whitecraft will be hanged, probably from the same rope too, but, in the meantime, I would save you both if I could. I fear indeed that to save him is out of the question, because it appears that there's a cart-load of indictments against him.” “How could you doubt it, sir, when you know the incredible extent of his villany, both private and public? and yet this is the man to whom you would have married your daughter!” “No; when I found Helen reduced to such a state the morning on which they were to be married, I told her at once that as she felt so bitterly against him I would never suffer him to become her husband. Neither will I; if he were acquitted tomorrow I would tell him so; but you, Reilly, love my daughter for her own sake.” “For her own sake, sir, as you have said, I love her. If she had millions, it could not increase my affection, and if she had not a penny, it would not diminish it.” “Well, but you can have her if you wish, notwithstanding.” Reilly first looked at him with amazement; but he was so thoroughly acquainted with his character, both from what he had seen and heard of it, that his amazement passed away, and he simply replied: “Pray how, sir?” “Why, I'll tell you what, Reilly; except with respect to political principles, I don't think, after all, that there's the difference of a a rush between the Papist and the Protestant Churches, as mere religions. My own opinion is, that there's neither of them any great shakes, as to any effect they have on society, unless to disturb it. I have known as good Papists as ever I did Protestants, and indeed I don't know why a Papist should not be as good a man as a Protestant; nor why a Protestant should not be as good a man as a Papist, on the other hand. Now, do you see what I'm driving at?” “Well, I can't exactly say that I do,” replied Reilly. [Illustration: PAGE 157--There is not a toss-up between them]