me rocked the syllables, as
with a groan, unpleasant to hear, he called on my aunt Dorothy by
successive stammering apostrophes to explain, spreading his hands wide.
He called out her Christian name. Her face was bloodless.

'Address my daughter respectfully, sir, will you! I won't have your
infernal familiarities!' roared the squire.

'He is my brother-in-law,' said Dorothy, reposing on the courage of her
blood, now that the worst had been spoken. 'Forgive me, Mr. Richmond, for
having secretly induced you to accept the loan from me.'

'Loan!' interjected the squire. 'They fell upon it like a pair of kites.
You'll find the last ghost of a bone of your loan in a bill, and well
picked. They've been doing their bills: I've heard that.'

My father touched the points of his fingers on his forehead, straining to
think, too theatrically, but in hard earnest, I believe. He seemed to be
rising on tiptoe.

'Oh, madam! Dear lady! my friend! Dorothy, my sister! Better a thousand
times that I had married, though I shrank from a heartless union! This
money?--it is not--'

The old man broke in: 'Are you going to be a damned low vulgar comedian
and tale of a trumpet up to the end, you Richmond? Don't think you'll
gain anything by standing there as if you were jumping your trunk from a
shark. Come, sir, you're in a gentleman's rooms; don't pitch your voice
like a young jackanapes blowing into a horn. Your gasps and your spasms,
and howl of a yawning brute! Keep your menagerie performances for your
pantomime audiences. What are you meaning? Do you pretend you're
astonished? She's not the first fool of a woman whose money you've
devoured, with your "Madam," and "My dear" and mouthing and elbowing your
comedy tricks; your gabble of "Government" protection, and scandalous
advertisements of the by-blow of a star-coated rapscallion. If you've a
recollection of the man in you, show your back, and be off, say you've
fought against odds--I don't doubt you have, counting the constables--and
own you're a villain: plead guilty, and be off and be silent, and do no
more harm. Is it "Government" still?'

My aunt Dorothy had come round to me. She clutched my arm to restrain me
from speaking, whispering:

'Harry, you can't save him. Think of your own head.' She made me
irresolute, and I was too late to check my father from falling into the
trap.

'Oh! Mr. Beltham,' he said, 'you are hard, sir. I put it to you: had you
been in receipt of a sec