Page 52 (1/1)

"You have lied to save him from me!" I cried "You lie--ha, confess!" And I strode towards her, the long blade a-glitter in rasp

"Would you killand with eyes that never wavered "Would you murder a helplessat ht, and thus we stood awhile, staring into each other's eyes

"Martin Conisby is dead!" says I at last

For answer she pointed to the wall abovecavalier, richly habited, who sentle-lipped, all care-free youth and gaiety; and beneath this portrait ran the words: MARTIN CONISBY, LORD WENDOVER Aetat 21

"Mada my back on the picture, "Yon innocent hipped to death aboard a Spanish galleass years since, wherefore I, a poor rogue, co her hands and viewing me with troubled eyes, "O sir--who slain the father, sold the son into slavery, to the hell of Spanish dungeon and rowing-bench, to stripes and shaeance--I mean Richard Brandon"

"Ah--mercy of God--my father! Ah no, no--it cannot be! My father? Sure here is some black mistake"

"Being his daughter you should know 'tis very truth! Being a Brandon you must know of the feud hath cursed and rent our families time out of mind, the bitter faction and bloodshed!"

"Aye!" she one, or thereabouts, my father falsely attainted of treason, died in his prison and I, drugged and trepanned aboard ship, was sold into the plantations, whence few return--and Richard Brandon, enriched by our loss and great at court, dreamed he had made an end o' the Conisbys and that the feud was ended once and for all"

"My lord," says she, proud head upflung, "I deny all this! Such suspicion, so base and unfounded, shameth but yourself You have dared force your way into ht, and now--O now you would traducehih, I'll hear no one ere I su the bell-rope that hung against the panelling, she facedte !" says I, and seated reat bed

"Have you no shame?"