obey you
blindly and unquestioningly."

"Then, if you will insist upon knowing my reasons, you willful girl,
you shall be enlightened. Your precious lover has renounced you; and,
what is more, he will never show his face in this community again."

"No, no! It can't be true. He is loyal. I will believe in him above all
the world. He will return. I know he will," cried Betsy, shrinking and
paling, but still strong in her faith.

"But he has renounced you, Betsy, my daughter. He has written me that
he must give you up."

"Let me see the letter," said Betsy, still unbelieving.

Gilcrest crossed the hall to his office, and in a few seconds returned
with Abner's letter. "I would have spared you this, my child, if
possible," her father said as she eagerly seized the letter.

"Oh, what lie is this they have told you, my persecuted, darling
Abner?" she exclaimed. "You, my proud, high-minded, noble lover, a
bastard! Never, never, never! It's all a vile plot to cheat you of your
betrothed wife and your inheritance. Ah! I know whose work this is. It
is that smiling, treacherous Judas, James Anson Drane. I feel it, I
know it."

"You rave, my miserable, deluded child," Gilcrest said sadly, "but even
though you are for the moment well-nigh bereft of reason by the shock
of hearing that your lover has given you up, you must not in your
bitterness utter so wicked, so utterly unfounded an accusation against
an honorable man who loves you truly and would make you his wife."

Nothing her father could say could induce her to believe that Abner was
not laboring under some delusion about his being base-born. She could
give no reason for this belief, she said; but her own heart and her own
instincts told her it was all a mistake, or else a scheme to separate
her and her lover. "This will all be cleared up, I feel that it will,"
she said again and again, "and he will come back to me soon, and
without a stain upon his name. I intend to write to him at once, and
tell him that though all the world should forsake him, I will still be
true to him, and will believe, too, in his right to wear an honorable
name."

Her father reasoned and pleaded in vain. He finally lost all patience,
and grew angrier than he had ever been with her. "Go to your room, you
unreasonable fool," he finally said. "Go! No longer offend my sight by
your presence--but listen, first, and remember I will be obeyed. I
forbid your writing one line to that base-born vagabon