“Let us see,” he cried, as they one and all paused at the top of the staircase, before entering the rooms on the upper floor. “I used to keep my books here—such ones as I had not discarded and stacked away in the topmost story. And I used to pride myself on knowing where every volume was kept. Consult the shelves for me now and see if on the third one from the bottom and nearer to the left than to the right there is not a volume of Bacon’s Essays. There is? Good! I knew it would be there if some one had not moved it. And the ten volumes of Shakespeare—are they not on the lower shelf somewhere near the middle? I thought so. A capital old edition it is, too; printed by T. Bensley for Wynne & Scholey, Paternoster Row. And Gibbon’s _Rise and Fall_, with a volume of Euripides for a companion? Yes? And on the topmost shelf of all, far out of the reach of any hand but mine, a choice edition of Hawthorne—my favorite author. Do you see them all? I am glad of that; I loved my books, and often when very far away from them used to recall the hour when I had them under my eye and within reach of my hand.” “I wonder if he used to recall the child he left, tossed helpless upon the mercies of the town?” murmured one of the neighbors. “Is my desk here, and has it been touched?” he now asked, proceeding hastily into the workroom. “Ah, it all looks very natural,” he remarked; “very natural! I can scarcely believe that I have been gone more than a day. Oh, there’s the model of the torpedo I was planning! Let me see,” and he lifted up the half-completed model, with what Clarke could not but call a very natural emotion, looking it over part by part and finally putting it down with a sigh. “Good for those days,” he commented, “but would not answer now. Too complicated by far; explosive agencies should be more simple in their construction.” And so on for half an hour; then he descended and walked away of his own accord to the front door. “I have seen the old place!” he blandly observed, “and that is all I expected. If my daughter sees fit to acknowledge me, she will seek me in the wild spot in which I have made for myself a home. Here I shall not come again. I have not returned to the place of my birth to be a bugbear to my only child.” “But,” cried some one in protest, “you are poor and you are hungry.” “I am what fate and my own folly have made me,” he declared. “I ask for no sympathy, nor do I feel disposed to urge my natural rights.” “If you are Polly Earle’s father, you will be fed and you will be clothed,” put in Clarke hotly. “There is a meal for you now at the tavern, if you will go there and take it.” But the proud man, pointing to his dog drew himself up and turned scornfully away. “He can procure me as much as that,” said he. “When my daughter has affection and a child’s consideration to show me, then let her come to Hadley’s cave. Food! Clothing! I have had an apology for both for fourteen years, but love—never; and all I want just now is love!”