"I think most sons would share their father's feelings in this case," said Wakem, bitterly. "The girl's father was an ignorant mad brute, who was within an inch of murdering me. The whole town knows it. And the brother is just as insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade her seeing you, you say; he'll break every bone in your body, for your greater happiness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have made up your mind; you have counted the consequences, I suppose.Of course you are independent of me; you can marry this girl to-morrow, if you like; you are a man of five and-twenty,–you can go your way, and I can go mine. We need have no more to do with each other."