n that chained her to the seat.

She heard the door open and some one enter the room where her father
sat, with a lamp pouring its light over his stern and pale features
till every iron lineament was fully revealed. Scarcely conscious of
the act, Florence drew aside a fold of the curtain, and with her
forehead pressed to the cold glass looked in. Mr. Hurst had not risen,
but with an elbow resting on the table sat pale and stern, with his
eyes bent full upon her husband, who stood a few paces nearer to the
door. In one hand was his hat, in the other he held a slender
walking-stick. He did not seem fully at his ease, and yet there was
more of triumph than of embarrassment in his manner. Florence
observed, and with a sinking heart, that he did not, except with a
furtive glance, return the calm and searching look with which Mr.
Hurst regarded him.

"Mr. Jameson, sit down," began the haughty merchant, pointing to a
chair. "I did hope after our last interview never again to be
disturbed by your presence, but it seems that, serpent-like, you will
never tire of stinging the bosom that has warmed you."

"I am at a loss to understand you, Mr. Hurst," replied Jameson, taking
the chair, and Florence sickened as she saw creeping over his lips the
very same smile that had gleamed before her in the mirror. "When I
last saw you your charges were harsh, your treatment cruel. You
imputed things to me of which you have no proof, and upon the strength
of an absurd suspicion of--of--I may as well speak it out--of
dishonesty, you discharged me from your employ; I am at a loss to know
why you have sent for me, certainly you cannot expect to wring proof
of these charges from my own words."

"I have proof of them, undoubted, conclusive, and had at the time they
were first made! but you had been cherished beneath my roof, had
broken of my bread, and I was forbearing! Was not this reason enough
why I should have sent you forth as I did?"

Jameson gave a perceptible start and turned very pale as Mr. Hurst
spoke of the proofs that he possessed; but the emotion was only
momentary, and it scarcely disturbed the smile that still curled about
his mouth.

"At any rate the bare suspicion of these things was all the reason you
deigned to give," he said.

Florence heard and saw--conviction, the loathed thing, came creeping
colder and colder to her bosom.

"But since then I have other causes for pursuing your crimes with the
justice they merit, o