o his
conscience, earnest her entreaties, she was to plead with patience,
and appeal to his most heart-melting sentiments.

She heard someone coming downstairs. "It is he," she said to
herself, and she braced herself for the encounter.

"How you frighten me Miss--I beg your pardon--Madam."

It was Mrs. Dorant who uttered these words as she stood in the
doorway seemingly afraid to enter, fearing the visitor might turn
out to be a ghost.

"It is you, Mrs. Dorant," said Mrs. Mathers; "is my father
upstairs?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is he ill?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dangerously?"

"Not very; he does not want us to fetch the doctor. But what have
you come here for? If Mr. Rougeant saw you--oh--;" here she threw up
both her hands and opened her mouth and eyes wide--"oh--" she
continued, "master would swallow you."

"Do you think so; but I mean to go upstairs and to talk to him."

"Oh, don't go," she entreated, fixing her supplicating eyes upon
Adele, "he might kill you."

Mrs. Mathers laughed. "No," she said, "he is my father; he is ill
and needs me. I am going to discharge my duty towards him." And so
saying she ascended the creaky staircase.

To this day, she cannot explain the sensation which she felt as she
entered the room where her father lay.

She went straight up to her father's bedside, sank on her knees,
took the hand that was lying on the bedclothes between both hers and
began to weep.

Mr. Rougeant quickly withdrew his hand, he contracted his brow, his
lips slightly curved, he looked on her with contempt.

"What do you want?" he said roughly. "You come to beg, you pauper,
your angry creditors are clamouring for their money, you are on the
verge of bankruptcy. I knew it;" he added triumphantly.

"Father, it is true, I come to beg, but not for money. I am not
poor."

He looked at her suspiciously.

She turned upon him her tearful eyes and softly said: "Father, you
are miserable, I want to render you happy once more."

To her great surprise, he did not answer, but his countenance fell.
"Who has told her that I am miserable and that I wish to be happy
once more?" he mused.

His daughter seized this opportunity. She took the tide at the
flood. She pleaded earnestly and tenderly.

Then, as he balanced between pride and prejudice on one side, and a
life of peace and contentment on the other, her persuasive voice
made the tendrils of his heart move uneasily.

This stone-hearted man wept.

So did hi