You want--"
The old man interrupted him with a savage emotion which Jonas Billings
said made him look like "a satyre."
"I want to save her from the wrath to come," he said. "This here holy
Book gives me my rights. It says, 'Thou shalt not steal,' and the
trouble I have comes from you that's stole my wife, that's put her soul
in jeopardy, robbed my home--"
"Robbed your home!" interjected Orlando quietly, but with a voice of
suppressed passion. "Robbed your home! Why, the other day you tried
to prevent her entering it. You wanted to shut her out. After she had
lived with you all those years, you believed she lied to you when she
told you the truth about that night on the prairie; but her innocence was
proved by one who was there all the time, and for shame's sake you had to
let her in. But she couldn't stand it. I don't wonder. A lark wouldn't
be at home where a vulture roosted."
"And so the lark flies away to the cuckoo," snarled the old man, with
flecks of froth gathering at the corners of his mouth; for the sight of
this handsome, long-limbed youth enraged him.
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