annot think I am to blame," he
said. "I will tell you how it happened."

"O Dick!" she said, when she had heard him to an end, "how brave you
are, and how proud! Yet I would not be proud with a father. I would tell
him all."

"What!" cried Dick, "go in months after, and brag that I meant to thrash
the man, and then didn't? And why? Because my father had made a bigger
ass of himself than I supposed. My dear, that's nonsense."

She winced at his words and drew away. "But then that is all he asks,"
she pleaded. "If he only knew that you had felt that impulse, it would
make him so proud and happy. He would see you were his own son after
all, and had the same thoughts and the same chivalry of spirit. And then
you did yourself injustice when you spoke just now. It was because the
editor was weak and poor and excused himself, that you repented your
first determination. Had he been a big red man, with whiskers, you would
have beaten him--you know you would--if Mr. Naseby had been ten times
more committed. Do you think, if you can tell it to me, and I understand
at once, that it would be more difficult to tell it to your own father,
or that he would not be more ready to sympathise with you than I am? And
I love you, Dick; but then he is your father."

"My dear," said Dick desperately, "you do not understand; you do not
know what it is to be treated with daily want of comprehension and daily
small injustices, through childhood and boyhood and manhood, until you
despair of a hearing, until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until
you almost hate the sight of the man you love, and who's your father
after all. In short, Esther, you don't know what it is to have a
father, and that's what blinds you."

"I see," she said musingly, "you mean that I am fortunate in my father.
But I am not so fortunate, after all; you forget, I do not know him; it
is you who know him; he is already more your father than mine." And here
she took his hand. Dick's heart had grown as cold as ice. "But I am
sorry for you, too," she continued, "it must be very sad and lonely."

"You misunderstand me," said Dick chokingly. "My father is the best man
I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred of me, only he doesn't
understand me, and he can't be made to."

There was a silence for a while. "Dick," she began again, "I am going to
ask a favour, it's the first since you said you loved me. May I see your
father--see him pass, I mean, where he will not o