"Only that I love him, father--oh, so much!" pleaded Harry, passionately. "Indeed, indeed, I could not help it! I tried to love Sol, because you wished it, but it was no use; I felt that even before Richard came. We walked every day together for weeks and weeks, and he was so different from Sol, so bright and pleasant, and he loved me from the first, he said. He told me, too, that you had listened with favor to his suit, or, at all events, had not refused to listen--that there was good hope of your consenting to it, and without that hope he knew he could not win me. I only promised to be his on that condition. Speak to me, father; pardon me, father! Don't look at me so. He never meant to thieve, I am sure of that. You asked of him some warrant of his wealth, some proof that he could afford to marry me. You would not have done that had you set your face utterly against him. And I think--I fear--though Heaven is my witness that I knew nothing of it until now, that he took this money only to bring it back to you again, and win your favor. It was an ill deed, if he has really done it, which even yet I do not credit; but it was done for my sake; then for _my_ sake, father, pity him, pardon him!" She had thrown herself upon her knees beside the old man's chair; her long hair had come unfastened, and trailed upon the sanded floor; her hands were clasped in an agony of supplication. No pictured Magdalen ever looked more wretched or more beautiful. "You have more to tell?" said the old man, harshly. She shook her head, and uttered a plaintive moan. "Then _I_ have," continued he. "You say you love this man; now _I_ hate him! I do not regret that he has robbed me, since, by that act, he has placed himself in my power, and I mean to use it to the uttermost; but for his cozening me to my face, as he has done so long, and for his smooth, false ways, and for his impudent tales, which I had half believed, and for his audacious attempt to pluck you from the hand for which I had designed you, I _hate_ him. I tell you," cried out the old man, fiercely, "if this villain had fifty lives, and the law would help me to them, I would exact them all! If he stood here, I would brain him with yonder staff; and if my curse could follow him beyond the grave--as my vengeance shall to the grave's brink--he should perish in eternal fire! _Hate_ him? I almost hate you for having loved him; and if I thought you would dare to cross me further by holding to him now, I'd drive you from my door this very hour. You will never see him more; but I shall, once. This mouth shall witness against him to the uttermost; these ears shall hear the judge pronounce on him his righteous doom." "No, no," gasped the young girl, faintly. "If you do not hate me yet, I pray you to unsay those words. When you curse Richard, father, you are cursing you know not whom." She dragged upon his arm, and brought his ear down to the level of her mouth, and whispered in it.