and that a scoundrel should not get off scot free. I
want my money back; it's not money merely, but my years, and my brain,
and my love for thee, and my power to work: that's what he has robbed me
of. Let me have my money back, and I'll forgive him."

"Poor father!" said Phebe aloud, with a little sob. How easy it seemed
to her to forgive a wrong that could be definitely stated at six hundred
pounds! All her inward grief was that Roland had fallen--he himself. If
by a whole sacrifice of herself she could have reinstated him in the
place he had forfeited, she would not have hesitated for an instant. But
no sacrifice she could make would restore him.

"Does Mrs. Sefton know what he has done?" inquired her father.

She nodded only in reply.

"Does she believe him innocent?" he asked.

"No," answered Phebe.

"And Madame, his mother?" he pursued.

"No, no, no! she cannot believe him guilty," she replied; "she thinks he
could free himself, if he would only come home. She is far happier than
Mrs. Sefton or me. I would lay down my life to have him true and honest
and good again, as he used to be. I feel as if I was in a miserable
dream."

They were sitting together outside their cottage-door, with the level
rays of the setting sun shining across the uplands upon them, and the
fresh air of the evening breathing upon their faces. It was an hour they
both loved, but neither of them felt its beauty and tranquillity now.

"You love him next to me?" asked old Marlowe.

"Next to you, father," she repeated.

But the subtle jealousy in the father's heart whispered that his
daughter loved these grand friends of hers more than himself. What could
he be to her, deaf mute that he was? What could he do for her? All he
had done had been swept away by the wrong-doing of this fine gentleman,
for whom she was willing to lay down her life. He looked at her with
wistful eyes, longing to hold closer, swifter communication with her
than could be held by their slow finger-speech. How could he ever make
her know all the love and pride pent up in his voiceless heart? Phebe,
in her girlish, blind preoccupation, saw nothing of his eager, wistful
gaze, did not even notice the nervous trembling of his stammering
fingers; and the old man felt thrown back upon himself, in more utter
loneliness of spirit than his life had ever experienced before. Yet he
was not so old a man, for he was little over sixty, but his hard life
of incessant toil and hi