here is some orthodox way of breaking bad news," he says,
"but I never learned it. Ruth, your father is dead."

The girl shrinks back, and puts her hand to her forehead in a dazed,
pitiful fashion.

"Not dead!" she says, imploringly, as though her contrition could
bring him back to life. "Not altogether gone beyond recall. Sick,
perhaps,--nay, dying,--but not dead!"

"Yes, he is dead," says Horace, though more gently. "He died a week
ago."

A terrible silence falls upon the room. Presently, alarmed at her
unnatural calm, he lays his hand upon her shoulder to rouse her.

"There is no use in fretting over what cannot be recalled," he says,
quickly, though still in his gentler tone. "And there are other things
I must speak to you about to-night. My remaining time in this country
is short, and I want you to understand the arrangements I have made
for your comfort before leaving you."

"You will leave me?" cries she, sharply. A dagger seems to have
reached and pierced her heart. Falling upon her knees before him, she
clasps him, and whispers, in a voice that has grown feeble through the
intensity of her emotion, "Horace, do not forsake me. Think of all the
past, and do not let the end be separation. What can I do? Where can I
go?--with no home, no aim in life! Have pity! My father is dead; my
friends, too, are dead to me. In all this wide miserable world I have
only you!"

"Only me!" he echoes, with a short bitter laugh. "A prize, surely. You
don't know what folly you are talking. I give you a chance of escape
from me,--an honorable chance, where a new home and new friends await
you."

"I want no friends, no home." (She is still clinging to his knees,
with her white earnest face uplifted to his.) "Let me be your
slave,--anything; but do not part from me. I cannot live without you
now. It is only death you offer me."

"Remember my temper," he says, warningly. "Only last night I struck
you. Think of that. I shall probably strike you again. Be advised in
time, and forsake me, like all the others."

"You torture me," she says, still in the same low panting whisper.
"You are my very heart,--my life. Take me with you. Only let me see
your face sometimes, and hear your voice. I will not trouble you, or
hinder you in any way; only let me be near you." She presses her pale
lips to his hand with desperate entreaty.

"Be it so," he says, after a moment's hesitation. "If ever, in the
days to come, you repent your bargain,