'piping days of Pan' I should flatter myself that 'Ox-eyed Juno' had
honored me with a call, as a reward for my care of her favorite bird."

Receiving no reply he glanced at the envelope in his hand, and as he
read the address--"To my dear father, Gen'l Luke Darrington"--the smile
on his face changed to a dark scowl and he tossed the letter to the
floor, as if it were a red-hot coal.

"Only one living being has the right to call me father--my son, Prince
Darrington. I have repeatedly refused to hold any communication with
the person who wrote that letter."

Beryl stooped to pick it up, and with a caressing touch, as though it
were sentient, held it against her heart.

"Your daughter is dying; and this is her last appeal."

"I have no daughter. Twenty-three years ago my daughter buried herself
in hopeless disgrace, and for her there can be no resurrection here. If
she dreams that I am in my dotage, and may relent, she strangely
forgets the nature of the blood she saw fit to cross with that of a
beggarly foreign scrub. Go back and tell her, the old man is not yet
senile and imbecile; and that the years have only hardened his heart.
Tell her, I have almost learned to forget even how she looked."

His eyes showed a dull reddish fire, like those of some drowsy caged
tiger, suddenly stirred into wrath, and a grayish pallor--the white
heat of the Darringtons--settled on his face.

Twice Beryl walked the length of the room, but each time the
recollection of her mother's tearful, suffering countenance, and the
extremity of her need, drove her back to the chair.

"If you knew that your daughter's life hung by a thread, would you
deliberately take a pair of shears and cut it?"

He glared at her in silence, and leaning forward on the table, pushed
roughly aside a salver, on which stood a decanter and two wine glasses.

"I am here to tell you a solemn truth; then my responsibility ends.
Your daughter's life rests literally in your hands; for unless you
consent to furnish the money to pay for a surgical operation, which may
restore her health, she will certainly die. I am indulging in no
exaggeration to extort alms. In this letter is the certificate of a
distinguished physician, corroborating my statement. If you, the author
of her being, prefer to hasten her death, then your choice of an awful
revenge must be settled between your hardened conscience and your God."

"You are bold indeed, to beard me in my own house, and te