earer. I did not doubt it was my father, for few others
ever rode our way. He had been from home all day, as he frequently was of
late, only he did not usually return so early in the evening. Something
in my mother's face as she strained her eyes into the shadows to catch a
glimpse of the advancing horseman drew me from my chair and to her side.

"It is your father," she said, in a voice almost inaudible, and as she
spoke, the rider leaped from the shadow of the trees. He drew his horse
up before the porch with a jerk and threw himself from the saddle. As he
came up the steps, I saw that his face was strangely flushed and his eyes
gleaming in a way that made me shiver. I felt my mother's arm about me
trembling as she drew me closer to her.

"Well, it's over," he said, flinging himself down upon the upper step,
"and damme if I'm sorry. Anything's better than living here in the woods
like a lump on a log."

"What do you mean is over, Tom?" asked my mother very quietly.

"I mean our possession of this place is over. Since an hour ago, it has
belonged to Squire Blakesley, across the river."

"You mean you have gambled it away?"

"If you choose to call it that," said my father ungraciously, and he
turned his back to us and gazed gloomily out over the water.

For a moment there was silence.

"Since we no longer possess this place," said my mother at last, "I
suppose you intend to forget your foolish anger against your father, and
claim your patrimony?"

"Foolish or not," he cried, "I have sworn never to take it until it is
offered to me, and I mean to keep my word!"

"You would make your boy a beggar to gratify a foolish whim!" retorted my
mother, her voice trembling with passion. I had never seen her so, and
even my father glanced at her furtively in some astonishment. "Very well.
In that it is for you to do as you may choose, but his estate here, or
what is left of it, shall be kept intact for him."

"What do you mean?" cried my father, and he sprang to his feet and
slashed his boot savagely with his riding-whip.

"I mean," said my mother very quietly, "that since a gambling debt is not
recoverable by law, we have only to live on quietly here and no one will
dare disturb us."

"And my honor?" cried my father with an oath, the first I had ever heard
him use. "It seems to me that you forget my honor, madam."

"You have been the first to forget your honor, sir," said my mother,
rising to face him, but still kee