ather would
once have smiled with enjoyment at some piece of boyish mischief which now
roused him to anger, and before excuse could be offered, or pardon
asked--the severest chastisement--I cannot tell how severe, was inflicted
on my flesh."

"Madman!" I exclaimed involuntarily, interrupting Warton in his narrative.

"Madman do you say, sir?" he answered quickly. "Yes, I have often thought
so--and to an extent, I grant you--if it be madness to have the reason
prostrate before passion. But it is profitless to define the malady. I
would have you dwell, sir, on the _cause_--_her_ fatal apathy--her
indifference--_I know not what besides_--which made him what he was. You
may imagine, sir, that my blood has boiled beneath the punishment--that I
have burned with indignation beneath the weight of it, undeserved and
cruel as it was. Oh, sir! God has visited me these many years with sore
affliction. I am a forlorn, disabled, cast-off creature--nothing lives
viler than the thing I have become; and yet in this dark hour I thank my
Maker with an overflowing grateful heart that He tied down my hands when
they have tingled in my agony to return the father's blow. I never did--I
never did."

The speaker grew more and more excited, and his voice at last failed him.
I rose, and retired to the window, but he proceeded whilst my face was
turned away. I know not why--but my own eyes smarted.

"Yes, sir, time after time the horrible desire to be avenged, and to give
back blow for blow, has possessed me; and, as if eternal torture were to
be the immediate penalty of the unnatural act, I have thrown my arms
behind me, clasped hand in hand, and held them tiger-like together, until
the fit was passed away. And then who could be more penitent, more
sorrowful, than he! Within an hour of perpetrating this barbarity, he has
met me with a look pleading for forgiveness, which I would have given him
had he offended me, oh much--much more. What could he say to his child?
What could his child allow him to utter? Nothing. I have kissed him; he
has taken me by the hand, we have walked abroad together; and he has
loaded me with gifts for the joy of our reconciliation."

Curious as I was to hear more, I deemed it expedient, for the present, to
close the history. The man seemed carried away by the subject, and his
cheeks were scorched with this burning flush which the unusual exertion of
mind and body had summoned up. He spoke vehemently--hurriedly--at th