As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill voice--the cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong passion, rose close at hand. “Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!” Philip started, and shuddered as if the words were addressed to himself, and from the grave. But, as he rose on his knee, and tossing the wild hair from his eyes, looked confusedly round, he saw, at a short distance, and in the shadow of the wall, two forms; the one, an old man with grey hair, who was seated on a crumbling wooden tomb, facing the setting sun; the other, a man apparently yet in the vigour of life, who appeared bent as in humble supplication. The old man’s hands were outstretched over the head of the younger, as if suiting terrible action to the terrible words, and, after a moment’s pause--a moment, but it seemed far longer to Philip--there was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl from a dog that cowered at the old man’s feet; a howl, perhaps of fear at the passion of his master, which the animal might associate with danger. “Father! father!” said the suppliant reproachfully, “your very dog rebukes your curse.” “Be dumb! My dog! What hast thou left me on earth but him? Thou hast made me loathe the sight of friends, for thou hast made me loathe mine own name. Thou hast covered it with disgrace,--thou hast turned mine old age into a by-word,--thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my shame!” “It is many years since we met, father; we may never meet again--shall we part thus?” “Thus, aha!” said the old man in a tone of withering sarcasm! “I comprehend,--you are come for money!” At this taunt the son started as if stung by a serpent; raised his head to its full height, folded his arms, and replied: “Sir, you wrong me: for more than twenty years I have maintained myself--no matter how, but without taxing you;--and now, I felt remorse for having suffered you to discard me,--now, when you are old and helpless, and, I heard, blind: and you might want aid, even from your poor good-for-nothing son. But I have done. Forget,--not my sins, but this interview. Repeal your curse, father; I have enough on my head without yours; and so--let the son at least bless the father who curses him. Farewell!” The speaker turned as he thus said, with a voice that trembled at the close, and brushed rapidly by Philip, whom he did not, however, appear to perceive; but Philip, by the last red beam of the sun, saw again that marked storm-beaten face which it was difficult, once seen, to forget, and recognised the stranger on whose breast he had slept the night of his fatal visit to R----. The old man’s imperfect vision did not detect the departure of his son, but his face changed and softened as the latter strode silently through the rank grass.