were often repeated by Miss Mandeville as she still
lay "between life and death," on her couch of fever, pain and
unconsciousness, and the tones of her voice were so full of sorrow, the
father's heart melted at last, and he began to relent. And when, after a
pause, his daughter would continue:

"He is gone! gone!--gone forever!--ah, my poor heart!"--in accents more
sadly plaintive than any words that had over fallen upon the parent's ear,
he said to himself:

"It must not be! Hadley shall be, sent for; she loves him, and his voice
may call her back to consciousness. I cannot bear to think of her leaving
the world in ignorance of her father's good will; better a thousand times
that Hadley should be with her for a few hours. He may not be guilty after
all. Why ought I to believe Duffel's word before his? Yes, and before that
of my own daughter, too? and that without a word of explanation! No, it is
unnatural. I wonder I have been blinded so long! Yes, Hadley shall be
heard, and if he can show a clean hand, Eveline shall no longer mourn over
his absence and my rashness."

This was going a step farther than Mr. Mandeville had ever gone before: for
he had never been known to recede from a position once taken or to change
an opinion once formed, unless the most positive evidence compelled him to
do so, and then it was a silent acquiescence to the right rather than a
willing change of opinion.

But a long continuance in the sick room, and the great distress of his
child, had had an effect upon his mind, which no amount of reasoning could
have produced--he was constrained to acknowledge himself in error, and
brought his mind up to that point where he was willing to confess the wrong
he had perpetrated, by "undoing what he had done amiss." This was a great
achievement for one of his temperament--a conquest over self in a very
selfish and stubborn nature--which gave evidence that there was yet an
under strata of good, a foundation to the character of the man, which,
though covered up by the rubbish and rank growth of pride and other
unamiable dispositions, still existed, and was capable of exciting to good
and noble deeds.

Having once gained the consent of his mind and formed a resolution to
retract, he was not long in taking the initiatory step toward amendment.

He inquired of the maid and nurse if Hadley had been seen, and learned from
them that he had been in the daily practice of asking after the condition
of Eveline,