The Daughter Pays

"_When you and I behind the Veil are past, Oh! but the long, long while the world shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As much as Ocean of a pebble cast. One mome...

"_Take back the love you gave, I claim Only a memory of the same; With this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me._"--Browning.

Gaunt's mind never retained any very clear image of the rest of that day. His brain was still partially clouded by the powerful poison which had entered his system. As Dr. Dymoc...

"_I was a moody comrade to her then, For all the love I bore her.... ... This had come to be A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate To wreak, all things together that a man Nee...

"_Why, here you have the awfulest of crimes For nothing! Hell broke loose on a butterfly! Yet here is the monster! Why, he's a mere man-- Born, bred and brought up in the usual...

"_I will but say what mere friends say. Or only a thought stronger; I will hold your hand but as long as all may, Or so very little longer._"--R. Browning.

"_Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew; Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins, He ponders in frenzy o'er lov...

"My word, but she's a peach," muttered Mr. Percy Ferris to himself as he rode hastily home through the lanes to lunch. "And old Gaunt's got her! That smoke-dried old curmudgeon!...

"_I am the most wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones: 'Let us melt into the landscape--just us two by our lones.-- People have come in a carriage--calling!... Here's your boo...

"_Early in the morning When the first cock crowed his warning Neat as bee, as sweet and busy, Fetched in honey, milked the cows, Aired and set to rights the house,... Fed the po...

"_She is coming, my life, my sweet, Were it never so airy a tread, My heart would hear it and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed. My dust would hear it and beat Had I lain for...

In the closed room within there was a pause. The sound of weeping died away, as though the master's voice had forced even anguish into the silence of terror. Grover answered him...

As once before, when the doctor visited her, Joey Ferris was busy in the garden, cutting off dead blooms. Her little boys busily waited on her, each with his small barrow, in wh...

The otter hounds were out, and Mr. Ferris was driving his wife in the car to the meet. The gentleman was in capital humour, for he knew how acceptable a companion he would prove...

"_But hadst thou--Oh, with that same perfect face, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And that same voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's note, and follows to...

"_Graceful as an ivy bough Born to cling and lean, Thus she sat to sing and sew.... When she raised her lustrous eyes A beast peeped at the door._"--Christina Rossetti.

She was sitting, with her pile of light literature and fashion papers, opposite the man who had married her, and who was to all appearance immersed in the folios of blue foolsca...

"_Her hand was close to her daughter's heart And it felt the life-blood's sudden start; A quick deep breath did the damsel draw Like the struck fawn in the oakenshaw._"--Rossetti.

"Hallo!" she said cheerfully, pushing back her untidy hair from her red, hot face. "How are you? Been to Omberleigh? Does she want to change the time of her drive?"

"_Living alone in an empty house Here half hid in the gleaming wood, ... Till a morbid hate and horror have grown Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, And a morbid, eating li...

"_The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit Can lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it._" --Omar Kha...

"_I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-- The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven's height, And in the sweetest passa...

"_Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend, Seeking a higher object. Love was given, Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end, That self might be annulled--her bondage prove T...

"_Yes, I have felt like some deserted world That God hath done with, and had cast aside Untilled, no use, no pleasure, not desired ... Could such a world have hope that, some bl...

"_I would not if I might Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed One time to dwell: my soul shall walk in white Cast down, but not destroyed._"--Christina Rossetti.

When Grover presently entered her room with lunch, Virginia was quick to perceive an estrangement. The woman's face was set in stern lines, and her eyes were cast down, except a...

"_With all my will, but much against my heart, We two now part. My very Dear, Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. It needs no art, With faint, averted feet, and many a te...

"_The wise sometimes from wisdom's ways depart: Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart? Precepts of prudence curb, but can't control The fierce emotions of the flowing so...

"_Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that's best indeed To look at, from outside the walls.... And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulley...

"_Shall I not one day remember thy bower, One day when all days are one day to me? Thinking, 'I stirred not, and yet had the power!' Yearning, 'Ah, God, if again it might be!'_"...

He had seated her in the old wooden writing-chair from which he had risen. He fetched another for himself, and placed it near. The lamp fell upon her burnished hair and upon his...