"Oh, papa! don't say so. Consider--only look round you. Surely you have the means to pay! We can sell--we can make any sacrifice--any sacrifice on earth to pay. Only think, there are all these things. There is all the plate--my mother's diamonds--there is----" He let her run on a little while; then, in a cool, almost mocking tone, he said-- "I have given a bill of sale for all that, long ago." "A bill of sale! What is a bill of sale?" "Well! It's a thing which passes one man's property into the hands of another man, to make what he can of it. And the poor dupe who took my bill of sale, took it for twice as much as the things would really bring; but the rascal thought he had no alternative. I was a fool to give it to him, for the dice were loaded. If it were the last word I had to speak, I would say it--the dice were loaded----" "But--but----" "What! you want to hear all about it, do you? Well it's a bad business. I thought I had a right to a run of luck--after all my ill fortune. I calculated the chances; they were overwhelmingly in my favor. I staked my zero against another man's thousands--never mind how many--and I lost, and have only my zero to offer in payment. That is to say, my note of hand; and how much do you think that is worth, my girl? I would rather--I would rather," he added, passionately, changing his tone of levity for one of the bitterest despair--"I would rather be dead--dead, dead--than----" "Oh, papa! papa! say it not! say it not! It is real. Such things are not mere words. They are real, father, father!--Die! You must not die." "I have little cause to wish to die," he said, relapsing again into a sort of gloomy carelessness; "so that I could see any other way out of it. To be sure, one might run--one might play the part of a cowardly, dishonorable rascal, and run for it, Ella, if you like that better. Between suicide and the escapade of a defaulter, there is not much to choose; but I will do as you like." "I would not willingly choose your dishonor," said she, shuddering; "but between the dishonor of the one course or the other, there seems little to choose. Only--only--if you lived, in time you might be able to pay. Men have lived, and labored, until they have paid all." "Live and labor--very like me! Live, and labor, until I have paid all--extremely like me! Lower a mountain by spadefuls." "Even spadefuls," she said; her understanding and her heart seemed both suddenly ripened in this fearful extremity--"even spadefuls at a time have done something--have lowered mountains, where there was determination and perseverance.