Yes, they may be
wicked enough to say she compassed the death of my father by my hands,
to get his property.'
"I had proceeded thus far when the terror of our position became
luminous like the coming fire on a prairie, which shows everything but a
way of escape. 'Where is your father?' they would ask of me in
Kensington. 'He is drowned.' 'How drowned?' 'He shot himself.' 'Why did
he shoot himself?' 'Because I had married his ward.' 'But his partner is
gone too.' 'He is murdered.' 'Why murdered?' 'Because he interceded for
me.' 'Where is your witness?' 'He has disappeared.' I saw the wild
improbability of this tale, and thought of past notorious quarrels with
my father ended by my voluntary absence. There were but two points that
seemed to stick in my nervous mind: 'It never would do to tell our
marriage at that moment, and I must find that sailor, who might still be
living.'"
"He found me, sure enough, begorra!" exclaimed Mike Donovan, giving the
relief of laughter to that intense narrative.
"Cowardly as you may call my resolution, gentlemen, it was all the
resolution I had left. To partake of the inheritance left me by both
partners in our house I feared to do. 'Let us do the penance of
suspicious separation,' I said to Agnes; 'as your husband I command you
to let me go!' She yielded like a wife, and stood my hostage in
Kensington for all those melancholy months.
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