e
were not your son, he should not stay with you another day! But I warn
you, John Hallet--do not go too far. Cast that boy off--harm him to the
extent of a hair--and, so help me God, I will strip you of the lying
cloak in which you hide your false, hypocritical soul, and show men
_what you are!_'

In my excitement, I had crossed the room, and stood then directly before
him. His face flushed and his eye quailed before my steady gaze, but he
said nothing.

David remarked, in a mild tone: 'Edmund, that an't the right spirit; it
an't.'

'You don't know the whole, David; if you did, even _you_ would say he is
the basest man living.'

Hallet pressed his teeth together; his eyes flashed fire, and he seemed
about to spring upon me; but mastering his passion, he rose after a
moment and extended his hand, saying: 'Come, Mr. Kirke, this is not the
talk of old friends! Let us shake hands and forget it.'

'Never, sir! I took your hand for the last time when I left this
counting-room, twenty years ago. I never touch it again! I shall tell
that boy _to-night_ that you are his father.'

'You will not do so imprudent a thing. I will do any thing for him--any
thing you require. I promise you--on my honor,' and the stately head of
the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co., sank into a chair and bent
down his face like a criminal in the dock.

'I can not trust you,' I said, as I paced the room,

'You can, Edmund; he means it. He is sorry for the wrong he's done,'
said the old book-keeper, in that mild, winning tone which had made me
so love him in my boyhood.

'Well, let him _prove_ that he means it; let him tell you all; let him
tell you how much he has had to repent of!'

'I _have_ told him all. I told him years ago.'

'Did you tell him how you cast off that poor girl? how for years on her
knees she vainly plead for a paltry pittance to keep her child from
starving and herself from sin? Did you tell him how you forced her on
the street? how you drove her from you with curses, when she prayed you
to save her from the pit of infamy into which you had plunged her? Did
you tell him,' and I hissed the words in his ear, while he writhed on
his seat in such agony as only the guilty can feel; 'how, at last, after
all those wretched years, she died of starvation and disease, with all
that mountain of sin on her soul, and all of it heaped on her by YOU!'

'Oh! no! I did not--could not tell him that! I did not know I had done
_that