d to the neighbourhood, I
would not be retarded, and I came on. I crave your excuses for the
hour of my arrival. The grounds for my coming at all you will very well
understand, and you will applaud me when I declare to you that I come
to her penitent; to exculpate myself, certainly, but despising
self-justification. I love my wife, Mr. Beltham. Yes; hear me out, sir.
I can point to my unhappy star, and say, blame that more than me. That
star of my birth and most disastrous fortunes should plead on my behalf
to you; to my wife at least it will.'

'You've come to see my daughter Marian, have you?'

'My wife, sir.'

'You don't cross my threshold while I live.'

'You compel her to come out to me?'

'She stays where she is, poor wretch, till the grave takes her. You've
done your worst; be off.'

'Mr. Beltham, I am not to be restrained from the sight of my wife.'

'Scamp!'

'By no scurrilous epithets from a man I am bound to respect will I be
deterred or exasperated.'

'Damned scamp, I say!' The squire having exploded his wrath gave it
free way. 'I've stopped my tongue all this while before a scoundrel 'd
corkscrew the best-bottled temper right or left, go where you will one
end o' the world to the other, by God! And here 's a scoundrel stinks of
villany, and I've proclaimed him 'ware my gates as a common trespasser,
and deserves hanging if ever rook did nailed hard and fast to my barn
doors! comes here for my daughter, when he got her by stealing her,
scenting his carcase, and talking 'bout his birth, singing what not sort
o' foreign mewin' stuff, and she found him out a liar and a beast, by
God! And she turned home. My doors are open to my flesh and blood. And
here she halts, I say, 'gainst the law, if the law's against me. She's
crazed: you've made her mad; she knows none of us, not even her boy. Be
off; you've done your worst; the light's gone clean out in her; and hear
me, you Richmond, or Roy, or whatever you call yourself, I tell you I
thank the Lord she has lost her senses. See her or not, you 've no hold
on her, and see her you shan't while I go by the name of a man.'

Mr. Richmond succeeded in preserving an air of serious deliberation
under the torrent of this tremendous outburst, which was marked by
scarce a pause in the delivery.

He said, 'My wife deranged! I might presume it too truly an inherited
disease. Do you trifle with me, sir? Her reason unseated! and can you
pretend to the right of dividing