"Well, what is it you want?" asked his lordship impatiently, but Louisa could not speak, she could only hold out Arthur's letter with a mute gesture of entreaty. "I don't want to read any of that nonsense; just tell me what you want, and be quick, as I am busy." Tell him what she wanted!--tell him that she wanted him to love and receive her as a daughter--tell him that the love he bore his son was henceforth to be transferred to the unhappy being before him--how could she tell him this? how could she tell him what she wanted? "Speak, girl, I say!" he cried, angrily. "Read this," she faltered, "it will tell you all." "I will not," he answered; "tell me, or begone!" Falling on her knees before him, she held out the letter, crying: "I am Arthur's wife. He is dead, and this is his letter, and I am here according to his wish--to his dying injuction. Take it--read it--it will tell you all." "Good gracious, the girl is mad!" he exclaimed, "mad as a March hare. Come, come! get up and go about your business, or I shall have you put in the asylum." Louisa felt choking, she could not speak; she could only stretch out her arms imploringly, still holding the letter. "There is some great mistake; my son is not dead, nor is he married, so do not think to impose upon me." "There is no mistake; Arthur is dead, and you see his widow before you," she managed to articulate. "No, no, Arthur is not dead, poor crazy girl; get up and go away," and he threw her half a sovereign, saying, as he did so, "now go away quickly, or I shall have you turned out; and mind, don't go about with your tale about being my son's wife, or I shall send the police after you. Now go." Crushed and humbled as she was by sorrow and suffering, this was more than Louisa's fiery nature could endure passively. Springing to her feet, her lips quivering with anger, while her large eyes flashed with passion, she cried, as she threw the proffered alms upon the table, in proud defiance, "Keep your alms for the first beggar you see, but do not insult me. I ask but what is right--that, as your son's wife, I should receive a home and the necessaries of life from you, his father, as he promised me. This you refuse me; but, were I to starve, I would not take your alms, thrown to me as a crazy beggar--never, never!" "Go, go!" he cried, she by her burst of passionate indignation still more confirming the idea that she was mad. "I will go," she answered, "and will never again trouble you; but know that I am no impostor--no insane person." John, who answered his master's summons, stood wonderingly at the door, and, as Louisa passed out, he opened the hall door, looking terribly mystified. "Take this," she said to him, "and if you loved your young master, give this to his father when he will receive it." Then with a full heart Louisa hastened from the park.