The old man uttered something between a groan and a curse. “Oh, you poor, crazy child! Can nothing make you understand that Bartley wants to get rid of you, and that he's just as ready for one lie as another? He thinks he can make out a case of abandonment with the least trouble, and so he accuses you of that, but he'd just as soon accuse you of anything else. _Write_ to him? You've got to _go_ to him! You've got to go out there and fight him in open court, with facts and witnesses. Do you suppose Bartley Hubbard wants any explanation from you? Do you think he's been waiting these two years to hear that you didn't really abandon him, but came back to this house an hour after you left it, and that you've waited for him here ever since? When he knows that, will he withdraw this suit of his and come home? He'll want the proof, and the way to do is to go out there and let him have it. If I had him on the stand for five minutes,” said the old man between his set teeth,--“_just five minutes_,--I'd undertake to convince him from his own lips that he was wrong about you! But I am afraid he wouldn't mind a letter! You think I say so because I hate him; and you don't believe me. Well, ask either of these gentlemen here whether I'm telling you the truth.” She did not speak, but, with a glance at their averted faces, she sank into a chair, and passed one hand over the other, while she drew her breath in long, shuddering respirations, and stared at the floor with knit brows and starting eyes, like one stifling a deadly pang. She made several attempts to speak before she could utter any sound; then she lifted her eyes to her father's: “Let us--let us--go--home! Oh, let us go home! I will give him up. I _had_ given him up already; I told you,” she said, turning to Halleck, and speaking in a slow, gentle tone, “only an hour ago, that he was dead. And this--this that's happened, it makes no difference. Why did you bring the paper to me when you knew that I thought he was dead?” “God knows I wished to keep it from you.” “Well, no matter now. Let him go free if he wants to. I can't help it.” “You _can_ help it,” interrupted her father. “You've got the facts on your side, and you've got the witnesses!” “Would you go out with me, and tell him that I never meant to leave him?” she asked simply, turning to Halleck. “You--and Olive?” “We would do anything for you, Marcia!” She sat musing, and drawing her hands one over the other again, while her quivering breath came and went on the silence. She let her hands fall nervelessly on her lap. “I can't go; I'm too weak; I couldn't bear the journey. No!” She shook her head. “I can't go!” “Marcia,” began her father, “it's your _duty_ to go!” “Does it say in the law that I have to go, if I don't choose?” she asked of Halleck. “No, you certainly need not go, if you don't choose!”