, she wrenched
her hand out of his grasp with a strength for which he was not prepared.

That fiercest anger which turns the face pale, was the anger that had
possession of Cristel as she took refuge with her father. "You asked me
to bear with that man," she said, "because he paid you a good rent. I
tell you this, father; my patience is coming to an end. Either he must
go, or I must go. Make up your mind to choose between your money and me."

Old Toller astonished me. He seemed to have caught the infection of his
daughter's anger. Placed between Cristel and his money, he really acted
as if he preferred Cristel. He hobbled up to his lodger, and shook his
infirm fists, and screamed at the highest pitch of his old cracked voice:
"Let her be, or I won't have you here no longer! You deaf adder, let her
be!"

The sensitive nerves of the deaf man shrank as those shrill tones pierced
them. "If you want to speak to me, write it!" he said, with rage and
suffering in every line of his face. He tore from his pocket his little
book, filled with blank leaves, and threw it at Toller's head. "Write,"
he repeated. "If you murder me with your screeching again, look out for
your skinny throat--I'll throttle you."

Cristel picked up the book. She was gratefully sensible of her father's
interference. "He shall know what you said to him," she promised the old
man. "I'll write it myself."

She took the pencil from its sheath in the leather binding of the book.
Controlling himself, the lover whom she hated advanced towards her with a
persuasive smile.

"Have you forgiven me?" he asked. "Have you been speaking kindly of me? I
think I see it in your face. There are some deaf people who can tell what
is said by looking at the speaker's lips. I am too stupid, or too
impatient, or too wicked to be able to do that. Write it for me, dear,
and make me happy for the day."

Cristel was not attending to him, she was speaking to me. "I hope, sir,
you don't think that father and I are to blame for what has happened this
morning," she said. He looked where she was looking--and discovered, for
the first time, that I was in the room.

He had alluded to his wickedness a moment since. When his face turned my
way, I thought it bore witness to his knowledge of his own character.

"Why didn't you come to my side of the house?" he said to me. "What am I
to understand, sir, by seeing you here?"

Cristel dropped his book on the table, and hurried to me in