_General Wyatt._--"I don't bid you. Margaret, I think I will go out with Mr. Bartlett. We will be back at dinner." He turns and leaves the room without looking again at Constance. V. CONSTANCE _and_ MRS. WYATT; _then_ BARTLETT. _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, Constance! How can you treat your father so coldly? You will suffer some day for the pain you give him!" _Constance._--"Suffer? No, I'm past that. I've exhausted my power of suffering." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"You haven't exhausted your power of making others suffer." _Constance_, crouching listlessly down upon the sofa.--"I told you that I lived only to give pain. But it's my fate, not my will. Nothing but that can excuse me." _Mrs. Wyatt_, wringing her hands.--"Oh, oh! Well, then, give _me_ pain if you must torment somebody. But spare your father,--spare the heart that loves you so tenderly, you unhappy girl." _Constance_, with hardness.--"Whenever I see papa, my first thought is, If he had not been so harsh and severe, it might never have happened! What can I care for his loving me when he hated _him_? Oh, _I_ will do my duty, mother; _I_ will obey; I _have_ obeyed, and I know how. Papa can't demand anything of me _now_ that isn't easy. I have forgiven everything, and if you give me time I can forget. I _have_ forgotten. I have been laughing at something so foolish, it ought to make me cry for shame." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance, you try me beyond all endurance! You talk of forgiving, you talk of forgetting, you talk of that wretch! Forgive _him_, forget _him_, if you can. If he had been half a man, if he had ever cared a tithe as much for you as for himself, all the hate of all the fathers in the world could not have driven him from you. You talk of obeying"-- _Mary, the serving woman_, flying into the room.--"Oh, please, Mrs. Wyatt! There are four men carrying somebody up the hill. And General Wyatt just went down, and I can't see him anywhere, and"-- _Mrs. Wyatt._--"You're crazy, Mary! He hasn't been gone a moment; there isn't time; it can't be he!" Mrs. Wyatt rushes to the gallery that overlooks the road to verify her hope or fear, and then out of one of the doors into the corridor, while Constance springs frantically to her feet and runs toward the other door. _Constance._--"Oh, yes, yes! It's papa! It's my dear, good, kind papa! He's dead; he's drowned; I drove him away; I murdered him! Ah-h-h-h!" She shrinks back with a shriek at sight of Bartlett, whose excited face appears at the door.--"Go! It was you, _you_ who made me hate my father! You made me kill him, and now I abhor you! I"-- _Bartlett._--"Wait! Hold on! What is it all?" _Constance._--"Oh, forgive me! I didn't mean--I didn't know it was you, sir! But where _is_ he? Oh, take me to him! Is he dead?" She seizes his arm, and clings to it trembling.