He was interrupted by Mrs. Lawson, who uttered many voluble protestations of her deep grief at her having, even though for the sake of economy, refused the money her dear father had solicited before he left them. She vowed that she had neither ate, nor slept, nor even dressed herself for weeks after his departure; and that, sleeping or waking, she was perpetually wishing she had given him the money, even though she had known that he was going to throw it into the fire, or lose it in any way. Her poor, dear father--oh, she wept so after she heard that he had left the country. To be sure, Henry could tell how, for two or three nights, her pillow was soaked with tears. A cold, bitter smile again flitted across the old man's lips; he made no response to her words, but in the one look which his hollow eyes cast on her, he seemed to read the falsehood of her assertions. "I was going to add," he said, "that though you forgot you were my son, and refused to act as my son, when you withheld the paltry sum for which I begged, yet I could not refrain from coming once more to look on my child's face--to look on the face of my departed wife in yours--for I know that a very brief period must finish my life now. I should not have come here, I feel--I know it is the weakness of my nature--I should have died amongst strangers, for the strangers of other countries, the people of a different hue and a different language, I have found kind and pitiful, compared with those of my own house." "Oh, don't say so--don't say so--you are our own beloved father; ah, my heart clings to every feature of your poor, dear old face: there are the eyes and all that I used to talk to Henry so much about. Don't talk of strangers--I shall nurse you and attend to you night and day." She made a movement, as if she would throw her arms around his neck again, but the old man drew back. "Woman! your hypocritical words show me that your pitiless heart is still unchanged--that it has grown even worse. You forced me out to the world in my old age, when I should have had no thoughts except of God and the world to come; you forced me to think of money-making, when my hair was gray and my blood cold with years. Yes, I had to draw my thoughts from the future existence, and to waste them on the miserable toils of traffic, in order to make money: for it was better to do this than to drag out my life a pensioner on your bounty, receiving shillings and pence, which you gave me as if it had been your own heart's blood, though I only asked my own. Woman! the black slavery of my dependence on you was frightful; but now I can look you thanklessly in the face, for I have the means of living without you. I spent sick and sleepless days and nights, but I gained an independence; the merciful God blessed the efforts of the old man, who strove to gain his livelihood--yes, I am independent of you both. I came to see my son before I die--that is all I want."