ow I would make reparation to
her, through her child. I tell you"--vindictively--"if you will consent
to give up the family of the man who stole my Eleanor from me I will
make you my heiress. All the property is unentailed. You shall have
Herst and twenty thousand pounds a year at my death."

"Oh! hush, hush!"

"Think it over, girl. Give it your fullest consideration. Twenty
thousand pounds a year! It will not fall to your lot every day."

"You strangely forget yourself," says Molly, with chilling
_hauteur_, drawing herself up to her full height. "Has all your
vaunted Amherst blood failed to teach you what honor means? You bribe
me with your gold to sell myself, my better feelings, all that is good
in me! Oh, shame! Although I am but a Massereene, and poor, I would
scorn to offer any one money to forego their principles and betray
those who loved and trusted in them!"

"You refuse me?" asks he, in tones that tremble with rage and
disappointment.

"I do."

"Then go," cries he, pointing to the door with uplifted fingers that
shake perceptibly. "Leave me, and never darken my doors again. Go, earn
your bread. Starve for those beggarly brats. Work until your young
blood turns to gall and all the youth and freshness of your life has
gone from you."

"I hope I shall manage to live without all you predict coming to pass,"
the girl replies, faintly though bravely, her face as white as death.
Is it a curse he is calling down upon her?

"May I ask how you intend doing so?" goes on this terrible old man.
"Few honest paths lie open to a woman. You have not yet counted the
cost of your refusal. Is the stage to be the scene of your future
triumphs?"

She thinks of Luttrell, and of how differently he had put the very same
question. Oh, that she had him near her now to comfort and support her!
She is cold and trembling.

"You must pardon me," she says, with dignity, "if I refuse to tell you
any of my plans."

"You are right in refusing. It is no business of mine. From henceforth
I have no interest whatsoever in you or your affairs. Go,--_go_.
Why do you linger, bandying words with me, when I bid you begone?"

In a very frenzy of mortification and anger he turns his back upon her,
and sinking down into the chair from which in his rage he has arisen,
he lets his head fall forward into his hands.

A great and sudden sadness falls on Molly. She forgets all the cruel
words that have been said, while a terrible compassion fo