g forth, "It is not too late,
is it? I have come here in time to save you. Come, come away with
me--come away from this place."

And he fawned upon Dick with his hands.

"Keep your hands off me," cried Dick, not meaning unkindness, but
because his nerves were shattered by so many successive miseries.

"No, no," said the old man. "Don't repulse your father, Dick, when he
has come here to save you. Don't repulse me, my boy. Perhaps I have not
been kind to you, not quite considerate, too harsh; my boy, it was not
for want of love. Think of old times. I was kind to you then, was I not?
When you were a child, and your mother was with us." Mr. Naseby was
interrupted by a sort of sob. Dick stood looking at him in a maze. "Come
away," pursued the father in a whisper; "you need not be afraid of any
consequences. I am a man of the world, Dick; and she can have no claim
on you--no claim, I tell you; and we'll be handsome too, Dick--we'll
give them a good round figure, father and daughter, and there's an end."

He had been trying to get Dick towards the door, but the latter stood
off.

"You had better take care, sir, how you insult that lady," said the son,
as black as night.

"You would not choose between your father and your mistress?" said the
father.

"What do you call her, sir?" cried Dick, high and clear.

Forbearance and patience were not among Mr. Naseby's qualities.

"I called her your mistress," he shouted, "and I might have called her a
----"

"That is an unmanly lie," replied Dick slowly.

"Dick!" cried the father, "Dick!"

"I do not care," said the son, strengthening himself against his own
heart; "I--I have said it, and it's the truth."

There was a pause.

"Dick," said the old man at last, in a voice that was shaken as by a
gale of wind, "I am going. I leave you with your friends, sir--with your
friends. I came to serve you, and now I go away a broken man. For years
I have seen this coming, and now it has come. You never loved me. Now
you have been the death of me. You may boast of that. Now I leave you.
God pardon you."

With that he was gone; and the three who remained together heard his
horse's hoofs descend the lane. Esther had not made a sign throughout
the interview, and still kept silence now that it was over; but the
Admiral, who had once or twice moved forward and drawn back again, now
advanced for good.

"You are a man of spirit, sir," said he to Dick; "but though I am no
friend to par