Lawrence had been sitting on the sofa with Elmira, his arm around her waist. He arose with her, still clasping her, and confronted his father. "Well, father," he said, with an essay at his gay laugh, though he blushed hotly, and then was pale. As for Elmira, she would have slipped to the floor had it not been for her lover's arm. Doctor Prescott stood looking at them. "Father, this is the girl I am going to marry," Lawrence said, finally, with a proudly defiant air. "Very well," replied the doctor; "but when you marry her, it will be without one penny from me, in realization or anticipation. You will have only what your wife brings you." "I can support my wife myself," returned Lawrence, with a look which was the echo of his father's own. "So you can, before long, at the expense of your father's practice, which he himself has given you the ability to undermine," said the doctor, in his cold voice. "I bid you both good-evening. You, my son, can come home within a half-hour, or you will find the doors locked." With that the doctor went out; there was a creak of cramping wheels, and a lantern-flash in the window, then a roll, and clatter of hoofs. Elmira showed more decision of spirit than her lover had dreamed was in her. She drove him away, in spite of his protestations. "All is over between us, if you don't go at once--at once," said she, with a strange, hysterical force which intimidated him. "Elmira, you know I will be true to you, dear. You know I will marry you, in spite of father and the whole world," vowed Lawrence; but he went at her insistence, not knowing, indeed, what else to do. The next day Elmira wrote him a letter setting him free. When she had sent the letter she sat working some hours longer, then she went up-stairs and to bed. That night she was in a high fever. Lawrence came, but she did not know it. He had a long talk with Jerome, and almost a quarrel. The poor young fellow, in his wrath and shame of thwarted manliness, would fain have gone to that excess of honor which defeats its own ends. He insisted upon marrying Elmira out of hand. "I'll never give her up--never, I'll tell you that. I've told father so to his face!" cried Lawrence. When he went up-stairs with Jerome and found Elmira in the uneasy stupor of fever, he seemed half beside himself. "I'm to blame, father's to blame. Oh, poor girl--poor girl," he groaned out, when he and Jerome were down-stairs again. That night Lawrence had a stormy scene with his father. He burst upon him in his study and upbraided him to his face. "You've almost killed her; she's got a fever. If she lives through it I am going to marry her!" he shouted. The doctor was pounding some drugs in his mortar. He brought the pestle down with a dull thud, as he replied, without looking at his son. "You will marry her or not, as you choose, my son. I have not forbidden you; I have simply stated the conditions, so far as I am concerned."