who can't
support my child--Yes! I say it again, a beggar who looks me in the
face, and talks as you do. I don't care a damn about you or your father!
I know my rights; I'm an Englishman, thank God! I know my rights, and
_my_ Margaret's rights; and I'll have them in spite of you both. Yes!
you may stare as angry as you like; staring don't hurt. I'm an honest
man, and _my_ girl's an honest girl!"

I was looking at him, at that moment, with the contempt that I really
felt; his rage produced no other sensation in me. All higher and quicker
emotions seemed to have been dried at their sources by the events of the
morning.

"I say _my_ girl's an honest girl," he repeated, sitting down again;
"and I dare you, or anybody--I don't care who--to prove the contrary.
You told me you knew all, just now. What _all?_ Come! we'll have this
out before we do anything else. She says she's innocent, and I say she's
innocent: and if I could find out that damnation scoundrel Mannion, and
get him here, I'd make him say it too. Now, after all that, what have
you got against her?--against your lawful wife; and I'll make you own
her as such, and keep her as such, I can promise you!"

"I am not here to ask questions, or to answer them," I replied--"my
errand in this house is simply to tell you, that the miserable
falsehoods contained in your letter, will avail you as little as the
foul insolence of language by which you are now endeavouring to support
them. I told you before, and I now tell you again, I know all. I had
been inside that house, before I saw your daughter at the door; and had
heard, from _her_ voice and _his_ voice, what such shame and misery as
you cannot comprehend forbid me to repeat. To your past duplicity, and
to your present violence, I have but one answer to give:--I will never
see your daughter again."

"But you _shall_ see her again--yes! and keep her too! Do you think I
can't see through you and your precious story? Your father's cut you
off with a shilling; and now you want to curry favour with him again
by trumping up a case against _my_ girl, and trying to get her off your
hands that way. But it won't do! You've married her, my fine gentleman,
and you shall stick to her! Do you think I wouldn't sooner believe her,
than believe you? Do you think I'll stand this? Here she is up-stairs,
half heart-broken, on my hands; here's my wife"--(his voice sank
suddenly as he said this)--"with her mind in such a state that I'm ke