e was going to throw it into the fire, or
lose it in any way. Her poor, dear father--oh, she wept so after she
heard that he had left the country. To be sure Henry could tell how, for
two or three nights, her pillow was soaked with tears.

A cold, bitter smile again flitted across the old man's lips; he made no
response to her words, but in the one look which his hollow eyes east on
her, he seemed to read the falsehood of her assertions.

"I was going to add," he said, "that though you forgot you were my son,
and refused to act as my son, when you withheld the paltry sum for which
I begged, yet I could not refrain from coming once more to look on my
child's face--to look on the face of my departed wife in yours--for I
know that a very brief period must finish my life now. I should not have
come here, I feel--I know it is the weakness of my nature--should have
died among strangers, for the strangers of other countries, the people
of a different hue, and a different language, I have found kind and
pitiful, compared with those of my own house.

"Oh, don't say so--don't say so--you are our own beloved father; ah, my
heart clings to every feature of your poor, dear, old face; there are
the eyes and all that I used to talk to Henry so much about. Don't talk
of strangers--I shall nurse you and attend to you night and day."

She made a movement, as if she would throw her arms around his neck
again, but the old man drew back.

"Woman! your hypocritical words show me that your pitiless heart is
still unchanged--that it is grown even worse. You forced me out to the
world in my old age, when I should have had no thoughts except of God
and the world to come; you forced me to think of money-making, when my
hair was gray and my blood cold with years. Yes, I had to draw my
thoughts from the future existence, and to waste them on the miserable
toils of traffic, in order to make money; for it was better to do this
than to drag out my life a pensioner on your bounty, receiving shillings
and pence which you gave me as if it had been your heart's blood, though
I only asked my own. Woman! the black slavery of my dependence on you
was frightful; but now I can look you thanklessly in the face, for I
have the means of living without you. I spent sick and sleepless days
and nights, but I gained an independence; the merciful God blessed the
efforts of the old man, who strove to gain his livelihood--yes, I am
independent of you both. I came to