"If you would not
inflict far more on him than you have done already; if you would not--as
you will, if you neglect my warning--designedly bring him to a shameful
death, as you have involuntarily doomed him to a shameful life, keep
these two men apart. If you love this son of yours, remove him from the
reach of mine."
"Great Heaven!" cried Harry, shuddering, "would he harm my boy--my
innocent boy?"
"Ay, as he would set his heel upon his father--the viper and his brood.
It is no idle menace he has breathed so cautiously that the whisper
might well escape even another ear than mine, in every letter for these
many years. He thirsts for liberty, not for his own sake, but for the
slow-ripening vengeance it shall bear. He will have it, unless we save
him from himself by saving them from him, as sure as yonder inky cloud
will fall in storm. The thought of it was full grown in his mind when he
wrote from Cross Key: '_They are dead to me, those three, at present_,'
and forbade me ever to mention them by name; and since then he has
thought of nothing else. The day of retribution is about to dawn. I say
again, beware of him."
"But he must be mad to cherish--"
"Perhaps he is," interrupted the old woman, coldly; "he will not be less
dangerous on that account to those who made him mad.
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