.’ Unworthy son, coward, liar⁠—you, who hold your councils with thieves and murderers in dark rooms at night⁠—you, whose plots and wiles have brought a violent death upon the head of one worth millions such as you⁠—you, who from your cradle were gall and bitterness to your own father’s heart, and in whom all evil passions, vice, and profligacy, festered, till they found a vent in a hideous disease which had made your face an index even to your mind⁠—you, Edward Leeford, do you still brave me?”

“No, no, no!” returned the coward, overwhelmed by these accumulated charges.

“Every word!” cried the gentleman, “every word that has passed between you and this detested villain, is known to me. Shadows on the wall have caught your whispers, and brought them to my ear; the sight of the persecuted child has turned vice itself, and given it the courage and almost the attributes of virtue. Murder has been done, to which you were morally if not really a party.”