“What has vexed you?” asked the father “for I see that something has.”

“Isn’t it a cruel thing,” she proceeded, without seeming to have attended to him; “isn’t it a cruel thing to think that every one you see about you has some happiness except yourself; an’ that your heart is burstin’, an’ your brain burnin’, an’ no relief for you; no one point to turn to, for consolation—­but everything dark and dismal, and fiery about you?”

“I feel all this myself,” said the Prophet; “so, don’t be disheartened, Sarah; in the coorse o’ time your heart will get so hardened that you’ll laugh at the world—­ay, at all that’s either bad or good in it, as I do.”

“I never wish to come to that state,” she replied; “an’ you never felt what I feel—­you never had that much of what was good in your heart.  No,” she proceeded, “sooner than come to that state—­that is, to your state—­I’d put this knife into my heart.  You, father, never loved one of your own kind yet.”

“Didn’t I?” he replied, while his eyes lightened into a glare like those of a provoked tiger; “ay, I loved one of our kind—­of your kind; loved her—­ay, an’ was happy wid her—­oh, how happy.  Ah, Sarah M’Gowan, an’ I loved my fellow-creatures then, too, like a fool as I was:  loved, ay, loved; an’ she that I so loved proved false to me—­proved an adulteress; an’ I tell you now, that it may harden your heart against the world, that that woman—­my wife—­that I so loved, an’ that so disgraced me, was your mother.”

“It’s a lie—­it’s as false as the devil himself,” she replied, turning round quickly, and looking him with frantic vehemence of manner in the face.  “My mother never did what you say.  She’s now in her grave, an’ can’t speak for or defend herself; but if I were to stand here till judgment day, I’d say it was false.  You were misled or mistaken, or your own bad, suspicious nature made you do her wrong; an’ even if it was thrue—­which it is not, but false as hell—­why would you crash and wring her daughter’s heart by a knowledge of it?  Couldn’t you let me get through the short but bitther passage of life that’s before me, without addin’ this to the other thoughts that’s distractin’ me?”

“I did it, as I said,” he replied, “to make you harden your heart, an’ to prevent you from puttin’ any trust in the world, or expectin’ anything either of thruth or goodness from it.”

She started, as if some new light had broken in upon her, and turning to him, said—­

“Maybe I undherstand you, father—­I hope I do.  Oh, could it be that you wor wanst—­a—­a—­a betther man—­a man that had a heart for fellow-creatures, and cared for them?  I’m lookin’ into my own heart now, and I don’t doubt but I might be brought to the same state yet.  Ha, that’s terrible to think of; but again, I can’t believe it.  Father, you can stoop to lies an’ falsity—­that I could not do; but no matther; you wor wanst a good man, maybe.  Am I right?”