various phials, glasses, etc., and
other things which I might require before her return. It was in an
evening in June, and I lay watching the approach of sunset from an
opposite window. I was oppressed, with a sad sense of loneliness, for
during the past six weeks I had enjoyed no society but that of my nurse
and periodical visits from my father; and felt, therefore, no common
pleasure when my most congenial but now nearly forbidden associate
entered the room. He had not seen me since my illness, and after this
protracted and painful separation our meeting was tender and
affectionate. He had, with all the fire of a hot and ungoverned temper,
a woman's depth of feeling, warmth of heart, and sympathising sweetness
of manner. Well do I remember the expression of his noble face, the
manly tones of his voice, as, seated beside me on the wide couch, he
bathed the temples of my aching head with eau-de-cologne, which he took
from the table near by, at the same time expressing again and again his
joy at once more seeing me.

"How long we had sat thus I cannot tell, but the twilight was deepening
in the room when we were suddenly interrupted by my father, who entered
abruptly, came towards us with hasty steps, but stopping short when
within a yard or two, confronted his step-son with such a look of angry
contempt as I had never before seen upon his face. The latter rose and
stood before him with a glance of proud defiance, and then ensued a
scene which I have neither the wish nor power to describe.

"It is sufficient to say that in the double accusation which my excited
parent now brought against the object of his wrath, he urged the fact of
his seeking by mean, base, and contemptible artifice to win the
affections, and with them the expected fortune, of his only child as a
secondary and pardonable crime compared with his deeper, darker, and
just but detected guilt of forgery--forgery of a large amount, and upon
his benefactor's name.

"To this day, so far as I know," said Emily, with feeling, "that charge
remains uncontradicted; but I did not then, I do not now, and I never
_can_ believe it. Whatever were his faults--and his impetuous temper
betrayed him into many--of this dark crime--though I have not even his
own word of attestation--I dare pronounce him innocent.

"You cannot wonder, Gertrude, that in my feeble condition I was hardly
capable of realising at the time, far less of retaining, any distinct
recollection of th