"Say whatever seems good to you," replied Bergan, gloomily, as he flung himself into a chair. "I doubt if you can say anything so hard to bear as what I have already said to myself." "Is that so?" asked Rue, in a tone of relief--"is that really so? Then I need not say anything. It is a higher voice than mine that speaks within you; and my poor words would only weaken its effect. Only listen to it, Master Bergan, pray listen to it!" she went on, with tears streaming from her blind eyes. "If you stifle it now, it may never speak so clearly again!" "Make yourself easy, maumer," answered Bergan, much affected, yet doing his best to speak cheerfully,--"I have not the least intention of stifling it. Moreover, I assure you that I am in no danger of repeating last night's miserable experience; drunkenness is not my besetting sin. I only wish I were as certain that I should never again give way to my temper." "It has run in the blood a great while," remarked Rue, not without a certain respect for its length of pedigree; "it will be hard to get it out." "It _shall_ be gotten out, though," responded Bergan, knitting his brows and setting his teeth with true hereditary doggedness. "Very likely it may," replied Rue, quietly, "if you take _that_ tone. No doubt the Lord meant the Bergan will to conquer the Bergan temper--with His help. But I will not trouble you any longer, sir;--thank you for setting my mind at rest. And don't be offended if I recommend you not to come in your uncle's way this morning; give him a little time to get into a better mood. I will send your breakfast out to you." Bergan's brow darkened. "I do not intend to come in his way," he answered a little shortly, "neither this morning, nor at any other time. My visit here is at an end. I leave this house directly." "Oh, Master Bergan, I beg you will not do that!" exclaimed Rue. "Your uncle really loves you in his heart; he will soon forget all about his anger." "It is not because I dread his anger that I go," replied Bergan, gravely; "it is because he has lowered me in my own eyes, and disgraced me in the eyes of others, in a way that _I_ cannot forget. At least, not until I have proved to myself that I am neither a moral coward nor a miserable parasite, and to the world that drinking and fighting are not the essential conditions of my existence. I cannot well do either without leaving Bergan Hall. And I certainly shall not put myself in my uncle's way again, until he sees fit to apologize for what he did yesterday." "Is the world turned upside down, then," asked Rue, with a kind of slow wonder, "that an old uncle must apologize to a young nephew?" Bergan colored, and the unwonted bitterness and irritation of his manner gave way before the force of the implied rebuke.