go to your
child. I am already dead; what matters it whether they take me or not?
You have watched the old tree fade leaf by leaf; it is only the stump
that cumbers the ground. Go to your child; if they try to drag me from
here, the first mile will be the end; and what better can one wish for?'
But no; I could not do that."

Natalie had been thinking deeply; she raised her head, and regarded her
mother with a calm, strange look.

"Mother," she said, slowly, "I do not think I will ever enter my
father's house again."

The elder woman heard this declaration without either surprise or joy.
She said, simply,

"Do not judge rashly or harshly, Natalushka. Why have I refrained until
now from telling you the story but that I thought it better--I thought
you would be happier if you continued to respect and love your father.
Then consider what excuses may be made for him--"

"None!" the girl said, vehemently. "To keep you suffering for sixteen
years away from your only child, and with the knowledge that at any
moment a word on his part might lead out your father to a cruel
death--oh, mother mother, you may ask me to forgive, but not to excuse!"

"Ambition--the desire for influence and leadership--is his very life,"
the mother said, calmly. "He cares more for that than anything in the
world--wife, child, anything, he would sacrifice to it. But now, child,"
she said, with a concerned look, "can you understand why I have told you
the story?"

Natalie looked up bewildered. For a time the interest of this story,
intense as it had been to her, had distracted her mind from her own
troubles; though all through she been conscious of some impending gloom
that seemed to darken the life around her.

"It was not merely to tell you of my sufferings, Natalushka," the mother
said at once, gently and anxiously; "they are over. I am happy to be
beside you; if you are happy. But when a little time ago you told me of
Mr. Brand being ordered away to this duty, and of the fate likely to
befall him, I said to myself, 'Ah, no; surely it cannot be the story
told twice over. He would not dare to do that again.'"

The girl turned deadly pale.

"My child, that is why I asked you. Mr. Brand disappointed your father,
I can see, about the money affair. Then, when he might have been got out
of the way by being sent to America, you make matters worse than ever by
threatening to go with him."

The girl did not speak, but her eyes were terrified.