"Then, sir, once for all, let me tell you, you talk in vain; never will my pride permit my beautiful child--she whom I have educated and trained to grace the home of the first in our land--to become the humble bride of a hireling clerk. Out upon you, for daring to ask it!" "And where would be the pride you boast of, should I choose to bruit to the world those tales that I could tell, of long years of practiced deception and guilt on your part--of wealth acquired by fraudulent means--of midnight hours of watchfulness, which have brought you ship-loads of contraband goods--of days and weeks spent in devising means to escape the vigilance of our Government officers, of--" Wilkins stopped suddenly, for Mr. Delancey fell back in his chair, groaning aloud. The head clerk held a glass of water to his lips, and he slowly recovered, and looked up in his visitor's face with a beseeching glance in his cold gray eyes. "I am in your power, but spare me! spare me! Have mercy on an old man, who is weak and erring, but whose withered heart clings to his only daughter!" "You give me your consent?" "Ask anything but that." "And you prefer to have your name go forth to the world branded with shame and infamy, rather than give your daughter to an honest man, who will strive to make her a good husband, and whom she already loves?" Mr. Delancey moaned, and covered his face with his hands. "Rather would you that men point at you with the finger of scorn--that former friends despise you--that the world look down upon you, and speak your name with scoffing, rather this, than see your child happy with the man of her choice?" "Yes!" cried the merchant, springing to his feet, "if that man be you, a thousand times, yes! Go; do your worst; cast forth my name like waste-paper on the winds, scourge it, brand, blacken it; do what you will. Though you curse me to the confines of purgatory, my daughter never shall be yours!" "This is your final decision?" "My last--leave my house, sir, and never do you dare to darken its doors again." "You may regret, sir, what you have said to-night," said Wilkins, putting on his hat and cloak. "I shall always abide by it. Begone, sir! Why do you tarry?" The folds of the heavy cloak fluttered a moment in the door-way, then passed through it, and disappeared down the long stairs. Through those vast halls, with frowning brow and heavy tread, Bernard Wilkins strode, and the massive door closed after him for the first and last time, and he went forth into the silent streets. CHAPTER XXXI. "I do beseech you, send for the lady, And let her speak." Othello. "Send the girl, Minny, to me," said Mr. Delancey to Della, as she was about leaving the breakfast-table, to go to her own room, the morning after Wilkins' visit to her father. Mr. Delancey, as was usual with him, had said not a word with regard to his interview with Wilkins, but he had thought of it deeply, and was now prepared to act. Della flew to her room.