"Your design, then, is to bring him to a trial?" asked Gerard. "I should have thought that the publicity--"
"I design," cried Sir Boyvill, with uncontrolled passion, "to bring him to a fate more miserable than his victim's; and I thank all-seeing Heaven, which places such ample revenge in my hands. He will die by the hands of the hangman, and I shall be satisfied."
There was something horrible in the old man's look and voice; he gloated on the foul disgrace about to be heaped on his enemy. The chivalrous notions of Gerard, a duel between the destroyer and his victim's son, was a paltry, trifling vengeance, compared with the ignominy he contemplated. "Was not the accusation against your mother loud," continued Sir Boyvill, "public, universal? Did not the assembled parliament pronounce upon her guilt, and decree her shame? And shall her exculpation be hushed up and private? I court publicity. A less august tribunal, but one whose decisions are no less widely circulated, shall proclaim her innocence. This idea alone would decide my course, if I could so far unman my soul as to forget that vengeance is due. Let it decide yours, if so much milk still mingle with your blood that it sicken at the thought of justice against a felon."
Transported by rage, Sir Boyvill sought for words bitter and venomous enough to convey his meaning; and Neville discerned at once how much he was incensed by the language used with regard to him in Falkner's manuscript. Wounded vanity sought to ape injured feelings; in such petty, selfish passions, Gerard could take no share, and he observed: "Mr. Falkner is a gentleman. I confess that his narration has won belief from me. His crime, dressed in his own words, is frightful enough; and heavily, if it be left to me, shall I visit it; but the plan you adopt is too discordant with the habits of persons of our rank of life, for me to view it without aversion. There is another which I prefer adopting."
"You mean," replied Sir Boyvill, "that you would challenge him--risk your life on the chance of taking his. Pardon me; I can by no means acquiesce in the propriety of such an act. I look on the wrongs he has done us as depriving him of the right to be treated with courtesy; nor do I wish him to add the death of my only son to the list of the injuries I have sustained."