and trouble, that it was impossible for him to save me from the fury of a
temper which he had no longer power to govern. I could read, or I believed
I could, his inmost soul, and I could see the hourly struggle for
forbearance and self-control. It was in vain. If his passion obtained the
rein for an instant--it was wild--away--beyond his reach--and he thought
not, in the paroxysm, of the sufferer, whose smile he would not have
ruffled in the season of sobriety and quiet. I did not fail again and
again to remonstrate on behalf of my mother--for the scene which I have
described to you became an endless one; but perceiving at length that
representation added only fuel to the fire, I desisted. My lively habits
soon appeared to be unsuited to the new order of things. My father 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