nct made me reach up for the last time and
bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my
prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not
so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,
I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and----He was
always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to
see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised
the whip in his hand, and when it fell my arm fell with it, and she
slipped from my grasp to the ground and lay in a heap in the roadway.

"'He was ashamed next minute, and pointed to the house nearby. But I did
not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do you remember it, Luke?
Do you remember it, Lemuel?

"'But it is not of this that I complain at this hour, nor is it for this
I ask you to drink the toast I have prepared for you.'"

The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see
through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,
told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to
revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears
from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation
or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some
suspense common to all held them speechless, if not dumbly apprehensive;
and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this, he could not
have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious glance around
the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.

Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.

"'My child lived, and what remained to me of human passion and longing
centred in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating
and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our
existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers
in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,
then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human
selfishness, but not as yet new fears. My nature was not one to grasp
ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make
me lenient toward you.

"'I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him
to realise that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,
kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my p