ned the very air she
breathes was, that you might not trace her in tracing me. But she is
out of your power again to kidnap and to sell. You might molest, harass,
shame her, by proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her into your
keeping, cast her to infamy and vice--never, never! She is now with no
powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no
helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all,
save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper,
be human--she is so delicate of frame--she is so sensitive to reproach,
so tremulously alive to honour--I am not fit to be near her now. I have
been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon's
brand is on me! But you, you too, who never loved her, who cannot
miss her, whose heart is not breaking at her loss as mine is now--you,
you--to rise up from the reeking pesthouse in which you have dwelt by
choice, and say, 'Descend from God's day with me'--Jasper, Jasper, you
will not--you cannot; it would be the malignity of a devil!"

"Father, hold!" cried Jasper, writhing and livid; "I owe to you more
than I do to that thing of pink and white. I know better than you the
trumpery of all those waxen dolls of whom dupes make idols. At each turn
of the street you may find them in basketfuls--blue-eyed or black-eyed,
just the same worthless frippery or senseless toys; but every man
dandling his own doll, whether he call it sweetheart or daughter, makes
the same puling boast that he has an angel of purity in his puppet of
wax. Nay, hear me! to that girl I owe nothing. You know what I owe to
you. You bid me not seek her, and say, 'I am your father.' Do you think
it does not misbecome me more, and can it wound you less, when I come to
you, and remind you that I am your son!"

"Jasper!" faltered the old man, turning his face aside, for the touch
of feeling towards himself, contrasting the cynicism with which Jasper
spoke of other ties not less sacred, took the father by surprise.

"And," continued Jasper, "remembering how you once loved me--with what
self-sacrifice you proved that love--it is with a bitter grudge against
that girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which
was mine,--and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach
her. What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly
lie down in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of thos