"God bless and keep you, my dear boy," said Joseph Devereux, showing more of his natural vigor than for many weeks past, as he fixed his large eyes upon the handsome young face, pale, but filled with resolution and high purpose. "God bless and keep you in the struggle in which I know you will do your part unflinchingly. Never be guilty of aught in the future, as you have never in the past, to stain the good name you bear." Fearing that which he deemed a reflection upon his manhood, the young man did not reply in words, but threw his arms about his father's neck in a way he had not done since boyhood; and the old man alone knew how something wet still lay upon his withered cheek after his son had left him. The last person to whom Jack said farewell was his sister. She had stolen away to her own room, and there he found her weeping. "Little Dot," he said in a choking voice, opening his arms to her as he paused just across the threshold. She looked up, and with a low cry--half of pain, half joy--fled to him; and with this the shadow, almost estrangement, that had come between them was swept away forever. He held her tight against his breast, and let her weep silently for a time, before he said very gently, "Dot, my little girl, I must speak to you on a certain matter before I go away." She raised her head and kissed him; and this he took as permission to tell her what was upon his mind. "Dot, I cannot go from you without having everything between us the same as has been all our lives, until these past few sad months." At this she clung all the closer to him. "You were badly treated, little one," he continued, "shamefully treated; and it was a great grief to me that you did not come and trust your brother to the end of telling him the whole matter at the very first. But 't is all past now, and words are of no worth. Only this I must know from your own lips,--if you love this man who has forced himself to be your husband, and if you love him sufficiently to leave us all, should he so bid you?" "That he will never do," Dorothy answered, her voice full of sad conviction. "He has gone, thinking I hate him." "And why did you send him away with such a notion as that?" "Oh, Jack," the girl cried piteously, "cannot you see--can you not understand? I could not go and leave you all. I dared not tell at the time all that had happened--I did not know what to do." "And you love not the cause he fights for, though you love the man himself?" And a faint smile touched his lips. "That is it, Jack," she answered, relieved at being understood. "You have spoken my own feelings. I could not leave father; had I done so, think of what would have come to me now." "Poor father, 't is well he will never need to know. Well, Dot," and he tried to speak cheerily, "although 't is a sad tangle now, perhaps time will straighten it somewhat; and all we can do is to wait and hope."