aration
accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin! you go to your death!" While
her voice still rang in my ears, the cottage door was opened and closed
again. It was all over. The modest world of my boyish love and my boyish
joy disappeared like the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness,
which was my father's world, opened before me void of love and void of
joy. God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment!

CHAPTER IV. THE CURTAIN FALLS.

FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a close
prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my father could
depend.

The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered before
I had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I contrived
to write to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing hand of the
housemaid who attended on me. Useless! The vigilance of my guardian was
not to be evaded. The woman was suspected and followed, and the letter
was taken from her. My father tore it up with his own hands.

Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me.

She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve my
interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her by
announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him, when he
returned to America.

"Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, "is to be thrown
into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in London; he has let
the house to some rich tradesman for seven years; he has sold the plate,
and the jewels that came to me from his mother. The land in America
swallows it all up. We have no home, George, and no choice but to go
with him."

An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door.

My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him, with
a desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I ran, I flew,
along the path that led to Dermody's cottage. The door stood open; the
parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I went into the upper rooms.
Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had left the place; and his mother and
his daughter had gone with him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with
a message; no letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in
what direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting words
which his master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was concerned in
leaving no trace of his whereabouts; my father might consider it as a
trace purposely left with the