"Then have you sent my dearest relatives to an
untimely grave, driven me from the home of my childhood, and made a
hundred wretches swim a sea of sorrow; and yet you do not know me?"
Indeed, the charges here recounted would have least served to aid
the recognition, for they belonged only to one case among many
scores that might have been enumerated. He shook his head in reply.
For a minute did they,--the stranger scowling sarcastically upon his
adversary (for such he now was),--gaze upon each other, until
Graspum's eyes drooped and his face turned pale. "I have seen you;
but at this moment cannot place you," he replied, drawing back his
chair a pace. "It were well had you never known me!" was the
stranger's rejoinder, spoken in significant accents, as he
deliberately drew from beneath his cloak a revolver, which he laid
on the table, warning his adversary that it were well he move
cautiously. Graspum affects not to comprehend such importune
demeanor, or conjecture what has brought him hither. Trembling in
fright, and immersed in the sweat of his cowardice, he would
proclaim aloud his apprehension; to which medium of salvation he
makes an attempt to reach the door. But the stranger is too quick
for him: "Calm your fears, Graspum," he says; "act not the child,
but meet the consequences like a hero: strange is it, that you, who
have sold twenty thousand souls, should shrink at the yielding up of
one life!" concludes he, placing his back firmly against the door,
and commanding Graspum to resume his seat.
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