“Don’t know Spanish?  Why I fancied your—­your ’exiled scion of a noble house’—­taught all the languages under the sun; including that used by the serpent in beguiling Eve!  Well, the wise old adage means:  ‘Who marries for love, lives with sorrow.’  Ellice made her choice, and she shall abide by it; and you—­being unluckily her daughter—­will share the punishment.  If ’fathers will eat sour grapes, the children’s teeth must be set on edge.’  I repudiate all claims on my parental treasury, save such as I have given to my son Prince.  To every other draft I am bankrupt; but merely as a gentleman, I will now for the last time, respond to the petition of a sick woman, whose child is so loyal as to arouse my compassion.  Ellice has asked for one hundred dollars.  You shall have it.  But first, tell me why she did not go to the hospital, and submit to the operation which she says will cure her?”

“Because I could not be with her there, and I will never be separated from her.  The aneurism has grown so alarmingly, that I became desperate, and having no one to aid us, I reluctantly obeyed my mother’s requirement that I should come here.  I could not summon my brother, because I have no idea where a letter would reach him; and with no friend—­but the God of the friendless—­I am before you.  There is one thing I ought to tell you; I have terrible forebodings of the result of the operation, from which the Doctor encourages her to hope so much.  She will not be able to take anesthetics, at least not chloroform, because she has a weak heart, and—­”

“Yes—­a very weak heart!  It was never strong enough to hold her to her duty.”

“If you could see her now, I think even your vindictive hatred would be sufficiently gratified.  So wasted, so broken!—­and with such a ceaseless craving for a kind word from you.  One night last week pain made her restless, and I heard her sob.  When I tried to relieve the suffering, she cried bitterly:  ’It is not my poor body alone—­it is the gnawing hunger to see father once more.  He loved me so fondly once and if I could crawl to his feet, and clasp his knees in my arms, I could at least die in peace.  I am starving for just one sight of him—­one touch.’  My poor darling mother!  My beautiful, bruised, broken flower.”

Through the glittering mist of unshed tears, her eyes shone, like silver lamps; and for a moment Gen’l Darrington covered his face with one hand.

“If you could realize how bitterly galling to my own pride and self respect is this appeal to a man who hates and spurns all whom I love, I think, sir, that even you would pity me so heartily, that your hardened heart would melt into one last farewell message of forgiveness to your unfortunate daughter.  I would rather carry her one word of love than all your fortune.”