"What did he steal?" asked the father with a sneer, while poor Elsie stood nearly fainting and yet unable to move from the spot, at that new charge against her brother. "A woman." Elsie felt relieved; the old man sneered. "Well, I can only say that if he took away any woman belonging to _you_, he must have a singular taste!" "Robert Brand"--and the doctor spoke in a tone of low and concentrated passion--"once more and for the last time I ask you whether your son is in this house, with Eleanor Hill, my--my adopted daughter, in his company." "Eleanor Hill!" gasped Elsie, but no one heard her. "Dr. Pomeroy," answered Robert Brand, "you do not deserve any answer except a blow, but I will give you one. My son, as you call him, Carlton Brand, is not here, and will never be here again while I live, unless to be thrust out like a dog. How many girls he has, or where he conceals them, is none of my business, or _yours_! Now go, if you know when you are well off, for as sure as God lets me live, if I ever see you approaching this house again, I will shoot you from the window with my own hand." Something in the tone told Dr. Pomeroy that both the assertion and the threat were true. He turned without another word, stepped to his buggy, mounted into it and drove away. "He is alive, father--thank God!" said Elsie Brand, reverently, when the unwelcome visitor had disappeared and she was assisting the invalid back to his chair of suffering. That one assurance had been running through her little head, putting out all other thoughts, since the remark of the doctor that Carlton had been at his house not an hour before. "He is as dead to me as if he had been buried ten years!" was the reply of the implacable father, who stood in momentary peril of the grave from some sudden turn of his disease, and yet who had not even taken that first step towards preparation for the Judgment, comprised in pity and forgiveness! CHAPTER X. BEFORE AND AFTER GETTYSBURGH--THE APATHY AND DESPAIR WHICH PRECEDED, AND THE JUBILATION WHICH FOLLOWED--WHAT KITTY HOOD SAID AFTER THE BATTLE, AND WHAT ROBERT BRAND--BROTHER AND SISTER--A GUEST AT THE FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL--A FIRE-ROOM VISIT, AN INTERVIEW, AND A DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.