more than at one time he would have deemed possible. He felt broken and crushed. And yet his father showed no sign of relenting.
"Tell me, what have you done?"
There was no hint of softening or conciliation in the tone in which the words were spoken. There seemed rather to lurk in the question some new disregard of his feelings—some new desire to wound and humble him further. With every wish to restrain himself, it seemed to him at last to be useless, hopeless, further to prolong a scene so eminently painful. He thought that he had done all that was possible for son to do: that he would now go his way; for indeed he could bear to stay no longer.
"Tell me what have you done, that I should do all this?" the old man repeated.
"Nothing," answered the son, hoarsely.
"Nothing?" the old man repeated, angrily.
"Father," he said, with some abruptness, "let the estates go. Let Steenie have them. Let him be your heir, and take his place as head of the house. Let his children come after him, and still be preferred to me. It will matter little enough; there will never be child of mine to inherit anything," he went on, bitterly. "Let the money go too. It was not that brought me home. It was not care for such things sent me on my knees just now. I asked your pardon, humbly, honestly. You withhold it from me. Be it so. Let God's will be done. I would have it otherwise, if I could. For curses, they are acts of Heaven, not words of man. Had I been censured more when I was a child, and less when I became a man, perhaps things would have turned out better, and I should not have had to sue here for pardon, or have had it harshly withheld from me. Indeed, father, you have done me wrong, not crediting me when I confessed my sin and implored you to forgive me. Can I do more? I come to you with my heart in my hands, and you fling it far away from you, and will have none of it. At least it will be something—not much, but something—to know that I arrived in time to see you—that I knelt to you—though all was in vain. I never thought to be speaking thus; but there seems to be now no help for it."
The old man raised himself in his bed, trembling violently. Unconsciously, Wilford had undone all the good his previous demeanour had wrought on his behalf.
"So you defy me, then!" cried Mr. Hadfield, passionately. "I may do my worst, may I? Curse or no curse. You care little. Will or no will. I thank you for this. I like openness and outspeaking. I am glad you have thrown off all disguise. You are the same shameless, unfilial Wilford Hadfield, who went away from here seven years ago; but worse, because you are older. I have to thank you for letting me know this in good time—in time to prevent me doing an act of gross folly and injustice. See here, sir," and the old man opened the Bible, and took from it a sheet of paper, "I had made a new will. I had purposed to restore to you the position to which you were born. I had again made you my heir—the next owner of the Hadfield lands. You have spoken in time. You have shown yourself in your real colours in time. Thus I send you back again to beggary, then; thus I cancel my will—thus—thus," and as he spoke, with trembling hands he tore the paper to shreds. "Thus I make Stephen my heir, and bequeath all to him. Now, sir, go forth—stranger, outcast, beggar: let me never set eyes on you again. Let me—"
He flung the crumpled fragments of paper into the face of his son; he whirled his thin, withered arms in the air, as though endeavouring to invoke some new curse upon his firstborn child; but his voice failed him: his passion prevented what he said from being either articulate or audible. He seized the hand-bell at his side, and rang it furiously. He sank back on his pillows, panting for breath.
Wilford hurried from the room. In the corridor he encountered his brother and the doctor.
"Go in at once, for God's sake," he said. "My father is very ill. He needs assistance, and at once."
Mr. Fuller entered the sick room.
"He has forgiven you? All has ended well?" Stephen asked.
"No," answered Wilford, with anguish. "He has not forgiven me. He will never forgive me now. Perhaps it had been better if I had never come back. Heaven knows I did it for the best."
"But he will change again, Wilford, soon. This illness affects him, makes him wild and angry, mad almost at times. By and by he will see you again."
"He will never see me again: he has cursed me anew. I am no more his son. I am nothing to him more. By and by? He will be dead, and he will not have forgiven me."
He tottered back: but for the support of the wall, he would have fallen.
"Let me get hence," he said, "into the open air. I cannot breathe in this house. How weak I am!"
His limbs trembling beneath him, he passed down the staircase, and went forth into the night, bitterly cold, and ghostly white from the snow thick upon the ground.
Stephen joined the doctor in his father's room.
CHAPTER IV. THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTERS.
