Have mercy!"
"Devils, or men, Patty? Both are your courtiers, remember, and perhaps
they crowd each other. What do we care? _Que contento estoy!_ Perhaps I
am indifferent because no blood is on my hands, vile slaver though I am!
Joe Johnson and his low-browed brother you could teach to kill; me,
nothing worse than to steal and fondle you. Patty, you believe in hell.
I am a believer, too; for I believe in heaven."
"O Van Dorn; how you do talk!"
"Since you entrapped my son, young Levin Dennis--_chito! quedito!_ do
not start, fair fiend--to have his father make another Johnson of him, I
have discovered, through the little girl, the beauteous damsel now,
Hulda Van Dorn, the sin you meant to spot me with; and, listen, Patty!
it was my son, rich with his mother's loyalty and love--dear guardian
wife, that never shall learn of my ruin here, nor see me more!--it was
my Levin, set free by me, who gave the news at Dover and beat us back."
He had partly risen as he spoke, and the exertion seemed to choke him.
The woman sat in dreadful silence, watching his veins rise upon his pale
and wilful face. He caught at his throat with his fingers, and for a
time could speak no more.
"Patty," said he, at last, between his coughing spells, "I believe
again, for I have seen my wife, true as an angel, beauteous as a child,
in prayer for me. An honest man waits my death to love her better, and
be the father of my son.
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