‘’You refuse to meet me,’ said my neighbor, ‘and for what reason?’

’’Because I do not hate, I merely pity you; because he who first defiled my home, lies in his sandy grave beside the waters of Lake Ponchartrain; because beside that grave I vowed to my Maker and my God never again to dare to take into these blood-stained hands the holy scales of justice.  Yes, Arthur, it is four long years since I sent that wretched victim of that woman to his last solemn reckoning.  Look at me to-day; my locks are white; ’tis not with age:  I have not yet lived out the half of man’s allotted span on earth.  But that bleeding corpse; the trickling, oozing drops from out that breast; the gurgling sound of the unuttered death-words of Adele’s first seducer—­these have made me prematurely old.  Oh! woe to him who dares to seek and takes revenge.  Vengeance has been claimed as Heaven’s sole, supreme prerogative.  Arthur, I must, I do refuse your challenge.’

’’Sir, I shall not deign to notice your calumnies about Adele, for I am anxious to terminate this interview.  May I ask why you seek to prolong it, and why, if you so loathe Adele, you persecute me by following her?’

’’Because I am resolved on two points—­to see her, and to learn from her where she has secreted our child.’

’’Unless you pledge yourself, Mr. Percival, not to make any further attempt to see Adele, you shall not, if I can prevent, leave this room alive.’

’’Oh! oh! finding I won’t fight, you fancy you can frighten me by threats of assassination.  It is rather creditable to your ingenuity, Mr. Livermore, but I had provided for such a contingency.  The United States Minister has been apprized of my arrival, and I left certain papers with his Secretary to be opened to-morrow, in case I should not return by noon, explaining our mutual relations very concisely yet definitely.  Now you know that the Mexican idea of justice, though lenient in the extreme to natives, is just as extremely severe to foreigners, so that I would hardly advise you to tempt the gallows, unless, indeed, you have less objection to suicide, for I really think that is the only way you can possibly cheat the hangman, unless you condescend to allow me to pay my respects to the American Legation to-morrow, in the forenoon.’

’On the stage, especially in the sanguinary melodrama, it is astonishing how little respect is paid to the gallows; but somehow in the humbler walks of every day life, it exercises a very salutary, deterring influence on a very large class of minds; and I was, therefore, in no way surprised to hear my neighbor resume the conversation in a tone decidedly an octave or two lower.

’’You have entirely misinterpreted my meaning.  I may have thought of here forcing a quarrel on you, but the commission of the crime you dare insinuate, never entered my brain.  But, now, sir, one last question:  Why do you persist in seeking an interview with the woman you pretend to hate?’