“I cannot hear you say that--I cannot, I cannot! Oh, God bless and take care of my poor Stella! Oh, papa, little Stella, that you have always been so fond of----” Mr. Tredgold’s arm started forth as if it would have given a blow. He dashed his fist in the air, then subsided again and laughed a low laugh. “I shan’t pay for those diamonds,” he said. “I’ll send them back, I’ll---- And her new clothes that she was to get--God damn her. She can’t have taken her clothes, flying off from a ball by night.” “Oh, what are clothes, or money, or anything, in comparison with Stella!” Katherine said. “Not much to you that don’t have to pay for them,” he said. “I shan’t pay for them. Go and pack up the rags, don’t you hear? and bring me the diamonds. She thinks we’ll send ’em after her.” And here the curse again. “She shan’t have one of them, not one. Go and do what I tell you, Katie. God damn her and her----” “Oh, papa, for the sake of everything that is good! Yes, I will go--I will go. What does it matter? Her poor little frocks, her----” “They cost a deal of money all the same. And bring me the diamonds,” Mr. Tredgold said. And then there suddenly flashed upon Katherine a strange revelation, a ludicrous tragic detail which did not seem laughable to her, yet was so----“The diamonds,” she said faltering, half turning back on her way to the door. “Well! the diamonds?” “Oh, forgive her, forgive her! She never could have thought of that; she never could have meant it. Papa, for God’s sake, forgive her, and don’t say--_that_ again. She was wearing them all at the ball. She was in her ball dress. She had no time to change--she----” He seized and shook her savagely as if she had been confessing a theft of her own, and then rose up with his habitual chuckle in his throat. “George, she’s done me,” he said. “She’s got her fortune on her back. She’s--she’s a chip of the old block, after all.” He dropped down again heavily in his chair, and then with a calm voice, looking at Katherine, said tranquilly, “God damn her” once more. CHAPTER XIX.