“When I was simply Earle Wayne,” he began, without removing his glance, “a poor boy working for his daily bread, I was considered unworthy of your notice. When misfortune overtook me and I became a criminal in the sight of the law, even after you knew that it was your son who had been sentenced to hard labor for three years, you made no effort to help me—you did not come near me to offer me one kind and sympathizing word even. When your daughter was kind to me, and I dared to feel a tender regard for her, you resolved to crush me. When a kind friend remembered me on his death-bed, you would have wrested from me the comparatively small sum that he had bequeathed to me out of his abundance. You have scorned, insulted, and wronged me in every possible way. You have even owned to an implacable enmity toward me. For all this I could forgive you, if convinced that you were truly repentant, since it was against me alone that all your malice and hatred were turned; but for the slight, the scorn, and the misery which you plotted, and, to all intents and purposes, executed against my gentle and innocent mother, I cannot. I have no right to forgive you. By your own wickedness and folly you have forfeited all right to be acknowledged as either her husband or my father. Mr. Dalton, _you_ can never cross the threshold of Wycliffe.” He had listened to Earle with a sinking heart, and when he concluded he fairly gnashed his teeth from anger and disappointment. Earle had spoken very quietly. There was not the slightest excitement visible in his manner, but every word had in it the ring of an unalterable purpose. “Do you mean it?” Mr. Dalton asked, in low, repressed tones. “Most emphatically, sir; _you_ can never enter the home from which my mother was driven in disgrace on account of your baseness and treachery.” Mr. Dalton sat in sullen thought for awhile. How he hated this calm, proud young man, from whom, even though he was his own son, he knew he had no right to expect anything of respect or consideration. But the things of the world were desperate with him just at present, and he controlled his fierce passion to make one last appeal. It was true that Editha still had her fortune, and while she still remained single he knew he need not want for anything within reason; still he could not in any way control her property, and all he received had to come through her hands, which, to a man so proud and spirited as himself, was, to say the least, humiliating. But if he could but once lay hand upon the overflowing coffers of Wycliffe his future would be one long day of luxury and pleasure, and, having been wronged out of his share for so many years, he would feel no compunctions about scattering with lavish hand the shining treasure of the house of Vance.