ullivan, on discovering this stolen interview--for such it was--felt
precisely as a man would feel, who found himself unexpectedly within the
dart of a rattlesnake, with but one chance of safety in his favor and
a thousand against him. His whole frame literally shook with the
deadly depth of his resentment; and in a voice which fully betrayed its
vehemence, he replied--

"Blame! ay, shame an' blame--sin an' sorrow there is an' ought to rest
upon her for this unnatural and cursed meetin'! Blame! surely, an' as
I stand here to witness her shame, I tell her that there would not be
a just God in Heaven, if she's not yet punished for holdin' this
guilty discoorse with the son of the man that has her uncle's blood--my
brother's blood--on his hand of murdher--"

[Illustration: PAGE 785-- "It's false," replied the young fellow]

"It's false," replied the young fellow, with kindling eye; "it's
false, from your teeth to your marrow. I know my father's heart an'
his thought--an' I say that whoever charges him with the murder of your
brother, is a liar--a false and damnable li--"

He checked himself ere he closed the sentence.

"Jerry Sullivan," said he, in an altered voice, "I ax your pardon for
the words---it's but natural you should feel as you do; but if it was
any other man than yourself that brought the charge of blood against my
father, I would thramp upon him where he stands."

"An' maybe murdher him, as my poor brother was murdhered. Dalton, I see
the love of blood in your eye," replied Sullivan, bitterly.

"Why," replied the other, "you have no proof that the man was murdered
at all. His body was never found; and no one can say what became of him.
For all that any one knows to the contrary, he may be alive still."

"Begone, sirra," said Sullivan, in a burst of impetuous resentment which
he could not restrain, "if I ever know you to open your lips to that
daughter of mine--if the mane crature can be my daughter--I'll make it
be the blackest deed but one that ever a Dalton did; and as for you--go
in at wonst--I'll make you hear me by and by."

Dalton looked at him once more with a kindling but a smiling eye.

"Speak what you like," said he--"I'll curb myself. Only, if you wish
your daughter to go in, you had better leave the way and let her pass."

Mave--for such was her name--with trembling limbs, burning blushes and
palpitating heart, then passed from the shady angle where they stood;
but ere she did, one q