een him and her silent
figure outstretched for burial. I had promised that no eye but mine
should look upon her, no other hand touch her, and I kept my word, even
when the impossible happened and her father rose up in the street before
us. Quietly, and in honor, she was carried to her grave, and then--then,
in the solitude of the retreat I had found for him, I told our father
all, and why I had denied him the only comfort which seemed left to
him--a last look at his darling daughter's face."

CHAPTER II.

THE OATH.

A sigh from the panting breast of Amos Cadwalader followed these words.
Plainer than speech it told of a grief still fresh and an agony still
unappeased, though thirty years had passed away since the unhappy hour
of which Felix spoke.

Felix, echoing it, went quickly on:

"It was dusk when I told my story, and from dark to dawn we sat with
eyes fixed on each other's face, without sleep and without rest. Then we
sought John Poindexter.

"Had he shunned us we might have had mercy, but he met us openly,
quietly, and with all the indifference of one who cannot measure
feeling, because he is incapable of experiencing it himself. His first
sentence evinced this. 'Spare yourselves, spare me all useless
recriminations. The girl is dead; I cannot call her back again. Enjoy
your life, your eating and your drinking, your getting and your
spending; it is but for a few more years at best. Why harp on old
'griefs?' His last word was a triumph. 'When a man cares for nothing or
nobody, it is useless to curse him.'

"Ah, that was it! That was the secret of his power. He cared for nothing
and for no one, not even for himself. We felt the blow, and bent under
it. But before leaving him and the town, we swore, your father and I,
that we would yet make that cold heart feel; that some day, in some way,
we would cause that impassive nature to suffer as he had made us suffer,
however happy he might seem or however closely his prosperity might
cling to him. That was thirty years ago, and that oath has not yet been
fulfilled."

Felix paused. Thomas lifted his head, but the old man would not let him
speak. "There are men who forget in a month, others who forget in a
year. I have never forgotten, nor has Felix here. When you were born (I
had married again, in the hope of renewed joy) I felt, I know not why,
that Evelyn's avenger was come. And when, a year or so after this event,
we heard that God had forgotten John P