The man has never
crossed his path in love or in ambition--yet he shoots him down,
ruthlessly and relentlessly. Shall _he_ do no more who hates, who fears,
who sickens at the sight of the man who has crossed his path in love and
in ambition? I tell you, Munro, I hate this boy--this beardless, this
overweening and insolent boy. He has overthrown, he has mortified me,
where I alone should have stood supreme and supereminent. He has wronged
me--it may be without intention; but, what care I for that
qualification. Shall it be less an evil because he by whom it is
perpetrated has neither the soul nor the sense to be conscious of his
error. The child who trifles with the powder-match is lessoned by the
explosion which destroys him. It must be so with him. I never yet
forgave a wrong, however slight and unimportant--I never will. It is not
in my nature to do so; and as long as this boy can sleep at night, I can
not. I will not seek to sleep until he is laid to rest for ever!"
The whole of this brief dialogue, which had passed directly beside the
recess in which the maiden and youth had taken shelter, was distinctly
audible to them both.
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