"What do I care if he _is_ dead! I believe I could forgive him better, if I knew that he was, and that I should never again set eyes on the likeness of a man with the soul of a cat or a sheep! If he is alive, as I believe he is, let him never come near this house again if he does not wish to hear words said that he will remember and curse the last thing before he dies!" A sharp spasm of pain concluded this unhallowed utterance, and words followed that have no business on this page. Elsie Brand fired again, when she found all her pleading in vain, and broke out with: "You are a miserable heartless old wretch, and I have a great mind to go out of this house, this very moment, and never come into it again as long as I live, unless you send for me to come back with my brother!" "Go, and the quicker the better!" writhed the miserable man, in the midst of a spasm of pain. "If I hear one more impertinent word out of you, you _will_ go, whether you wish to go or not, and you will never come back again unless you come on your knees!" What might have been the next word spoken by either, and whether that next word might not indeed have wrought the separation of father and daughter, no one can say. For at that moment came a fortunate interruption, in the sound of carriage wheels coming rapidly up the lane, and easily heard through the open doors--then the furious barking of a dog, the yell of a woman's voice, and a volley of fearful curses poured out from the rougher lips of a man. Elsie, alarmed, but perhaps rather glad than otherwise to have the threatening conversation so suddenly ended, rushed out of the room, through the parlor, to the front piazza, where she joined the general confusion with a scream of affright, hearing which, the invalid, who had before, more than once that day, proved how superior the mind could be to the disablements of the body, hurled one more oath at the people who would not even allow him to suffer in quiet, started again from his chair, grasped his heavy cane and stumped hurriedly to the door, writhing in agony and half crazed with pain and vexation. There the sight which had the instant before met the eyes of his daughter, met his own, though the effect produced by it upon himself was so very different that instead of screaming he dropped against the lintel of the front door in a loud explosion of laughter.