er here nor
there; the matter is just this: Will you pay the trifle I ask, for three
thousand a year, if it is n't more?"

"I must first of all consult with some friend--"

"There! that's enough. You 've said it now! Mr. Dalton, I 've done with
you forever," said the fellow, rising and walking to the window.

"You have not heard me out," said Frank, calmly. "It may be that I have
no right to make such a compact; it may be that by such a bargain I
should be compromising the just claims of the law, not to vindicate my
own rights alone, but to seek an expiation for a dreadful murder!"

"I tell you again, sir," said the fellow, with the same sternness as
before,----"I tell you again, sir, that I've done with you forever. The
devil a day you 'll ever pass under that same roof of Corrig-O'Neal as
the master of it; and if you wish me to swear it, by the great----"

"Stop!" cried Frank, authoritatively. "You have either told me too
much or too little, my good man; do not let your passion hurry you into
greater peril."

"What do you mean by that?" cried the other, turning fiercely round, and
bending over the back of the chair, with a look of menace. "What do you
mean by too much or too little?"

"This has lasted quite long enough," said Frank, rising slowly from
the bed. "I foresee little benefit to either of us from protracting it
further."

"You think you have me now, Mr. Dalton," said Meekins, with a sardonic
grin, as he placed his back against the door of the cell. "You think you
know enough, now, as if I wasn't joking all the while. Sure what do I
know of your family or your estate except what another man told me?
Sure I've no power to get back your property for you. I 'm a poor man,
without a friend in the world,"--here his voice trembled and his cheek
grew paler; "it is n't thinking of this life I am at all, but what's
before me in the next!"

"Let me pass out," said Frank, calmly.

"Of course I will, sir; I won't hinder you," said the other, but still
not moving from the spot. "You said awhile ago that I told you too much
or too little. Just tell me what that means before you go."

"Move aside, sir," said Frank, sternly.

"Not till you answer my question. Don't think you're back with your
white-coated slaves again, where a man can be flogged to death for a
look! I 'm your equal here, though I am in prison. Maybe, if you provoke
me to it, I 'd show myself more than your equal!" There was a menace
in the ton