CHAPTER III.


'George Leatrim's first thought was to go to his mother; but then she
was ill, and happily unconscious of what had taken place. Besides, like
his father, she might believe the evidence that Ralph had witnessed
against him, and he had not the fortitude to bear that. As his passion
subsided, he had courage to recall the painful events of the past hour,
and to acknowledge that the circumstances by which he was surrounded
were suspicious enough to condemn him in any court of law, and must be
maddening to a proud, sensitive man like his father. Struggling with
the shame and agony of his position, he could not recognise this
before, or admit that both his father and Ralph might be deceived.

'He had never felt the severe corporeal punishment during its
infliction. His mind was in too violent a state of agitation to care
for bodily suffering; but now that he was alone, the fiery indignation
that had upheld his spirit in the hour of his humiliation flickered and
went out, and the sense of degradation and intolerable wrong alone
remained.

'He remembered how his father had spurned him from his feet, had called
him a thief and a liar, and witnessed unmoved the infliction of a cruel
punishment, administered by the hand of the menial who had accused him
of the crime; and had ordered him from his presence without one word of
pity or affection.

'These after-thoughts were terrible. George felt that he had not
deserved this severity, and the tears which pride had restrained while
under the weight of Ralph Wilson's unsparing hand now burst forth in a