"Why?" His utterance was thick, and his eyes, that were grown
dull as a snake's, stared straight before him, daring not to
meet his daughter's glance. "I tell it you," he said, "because
I am a dying man." And he hoped that the consideration of that
momentous fact might melt her, and might by pity win her back
to him - that she was lost to him he realized.

"I tell you because I am a dying man," he repeated. "I tell it
you because in such an hour I fain would make confession and
repent, that God may have mercy upon my soul. I tell it you,
too, because the tragedy begun eighteen years ago is not yet
played out, and it may yet be mine to avert the end we had
prepared - Joseph and I. Thus perhaps a merciful God will
place it in my power to make some reparation. Listen, child.
It was against us, as you will have guessed, that Galliard
enlisted Kenneth's services, and here on the night of Joseph's
return he called upon the boy to fulfil him what he had sworn.
The lad had no choice but to obey; indeed, I forced him to it
by attacking him and compelling him to draw, which is how I
came by this wound.

"Crispin had of a certainty killed Joseph but that your uncle
bethought him of telling him that his son lived."

"He saved his life by a lie! That was worthy of him," said
Cynthia scornfully.

"Nay, child, he spoke the truth, and when Joseph offered to
restore the boy to him, he had every intention of so doing.
But in the moment of writing the superscription to the letter