But the storm gathered fast and faster on John Allan’s face.

“Card-playing?  Do you mean the boy has been gambling?  Give me the letter.”

She could withhold it no longer, but as he sat down to read it she threw herself upon an ottoman at his feet and clasping his knees hid her face against them, crying,

“Oh, John, have pity, have pity!”

But even as she sobbed out the words, she felt their futility.  She knew that there was no pity to be expected from the owner of that face of stone, that eye of steel.

As he read, his rage became too great for the relief of an outburst.  A still, but icy calm settled upon him.  For some minutes he spoke no word and seemed unconscious of the tender creature so appealing in her loveliness and in the humility of her attitude, beseeching at his knee.  The truth was, that much as he loved her, his contempt for what he called her “weakness” for the son of her adoption, but added to his harshness in judging the boy.

Presently he arose, impatiently pushing her away from him as he did so, saying;

“Pack my bag and order an early breakfast.  I’m going to take the morning stage for the University.”

It was a difficult evening for the little foster-mother.  In the stately, octagon-shaped dining-room soft lamplight was cheerily reflected by gleaming mahogany and bright silver and china, upon which was served the most toothsome of suppers; but the meal was almost untouched and the mere pretense of eating was carried through in silence and gloom.  In the drawing-room, afterward, the firelight leaped saucily against shining andirons and fender, bringing forgetfulness of the frosty night outside, while the carved wood-work and the great mirrors and soft-hued paintings, in their gilded frames, on the walls, and the deep carpets on the floors spoke of comfort.  But the beautiful room was a mockery, for the promised comfort, was not there—­only futile luxury.  Upon that bright hearth was warmth for the body, but none for the spirit, for before it sat the master and mistress—­the presiding geniuses of the house—­upon whose oneness the structure of the home must stand, or without it fall into ruin; there they sat, wrapped in moods so out of sympathy and tune that speech was as impossible between them as if they had been of different tongues, and each unknown to the other.

Meantime, Edgar Poe was spending his last hours at the University in the dust and ashes of self-condemnation and regretful retrospection No farewell orgie celebrated his leave-taking.  Only one of his friends was invited to his room that night and he no denizen of “Rowdy Row,” but the quiet, irreproachable librarian.  To this gentle guest The Dreamer confided his past sins and his penitence, while he laid upon the glowing coals the year’s accumulation of exercise books, and the like, which had served their purpose and were finished and done with, and watched the devouring flames leap from the little funeral pyre they made into the chimney.