“No—­I come of a flinty race.  We never forgive insults; never condone wrongs; and expecting loyalty in our own blood, we cannot live long enough to pardon its treachery.  Once, I made an idol of my beautiful, graceful, high-bred girl; but she stabbed my pride, dragged my name through the gutters, broke her doting mother’s heart; and now, I tell you, she is as dead to me as if she had lain twenty-three years in her grave.  I have only one message.  Tell her she is reaping the tares her own hand sowed.  I know her no more as child of mine, and my son fills her place so completely, I do not even miss her.  That is the best I can say.  No doubt I am hard, but at least I am honest; and I will not feign what I cannot feel.”

He limped across the floor, to a recess on one side of the chimney, where a square vault with an iron door had been built into the wall.  Leaning on his cane, he took from his pocket a bunch of keys, fitted one into the lock, and pushing the bolt, the door slid back into a groove, instead of opening on hinges.  He lifted a black tin box from the depths of the vault, carried it to the table, sat down, and opened it.  Near the top, were numerous papers tied into packages with red tape, and two large envelopes carefully sealed with dark-green wax.  In removing the bundles, to find something beneath them, these envelopes were laid on the table; and as one was either accidentally or intentionally turned, Beryl saw the endorsement written in bold black letters, and heavily underscored in red ink:  “Last Will and Testament of Robert Luke Darrington.”  Untying a small chamois bag, the owner counted out five twenty-dollar gold pieces, closed the bag, and replaced it in the box.

“Hold out your hand.  Your mother asked fur one hundred dollars.  Here is the exact amount.  Henceforth, leave me in peace.  I am an old man, and I advise you to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’”

If he had laid a red-hot iron on her palm, it would scarcely have been more scorching than the touch of his gold, and only the vision of a wan and woeful face in that far off cheerless attic room, restrained her impulse to throw it at his feet.

An almost intolerable humiliation dyed her pale cheeks a deep purplish crimson, and she proudly drew herself to her utmost height.

“Because I cannot now help myself, I accept the money—­not as a gift, but as a loan for my mother’s benefit; and so help me God!  I will not owe it to you one moment longer than by hard labor I can earn and return it.  Goodbye, Gen’l Darrington.”

She turned toward the closed door leading to the library, but raising his cane, he held it out, to intercept her.

“Wait a moment.  There is one thing more.”