I don't want to excuse Silas, either.

It was brutal of him--though he _is_ Ambrose's brother--to strike John, who is the smaller and weaker man of the two.

But it was worse than brutal in John, sir, to out with his knife and try to stab Silas.

Oh, he did it! If Silas had not caught the knife in his hand (his hand's awfully cut, I can tell you; I dressed it myself), it might have ended, for anything I know, in murder--" She stopped as the word passed her lips, looked back over her shoulder, and started violently.
I looked where my companion was looking.

The dark figure of a man was standing, watching us, in the shadow of the elm-tree.