'Hear you! Have I not heard you and believed you? Ay, I _have_. I was in my dotage; and you too, Kate, you listened and believed, did you not? Ah! girl, girl! a serpent charmed in Eden! But it's past now. I'll love you, Kate, though he do not. They said that gold was my God. They said that for gold I would barter everything; but they didn't know me. _He_ told you so too, Kate, did he not?--he told you that I'd sell you for _that_. He whispered tales of your father in your ear, until you became a renegade at heart; and _you_, my own child, plotted with a stranger to desert your home. _He_ told you that he loved you; and would make you his wife; did he not? Poor child! poor child! God help her! she knows no better! Ned Somers,' said he, turning to the young man, 'you must leave this house, and come here no more. My daughter is all I have to bind me to life, and I cannot spare her. You must go elsewhere to spread your web. For your vile designs upon her, may God forgive you--I never will!' 'Jacob Rhoneland,' said Somers, 'I have borne more from you than I would have taken from any other man. You are not now in a state to listen to reason, nor perhaps am I able just now to offer it; but you have said _that_ of me which I should be false to myself not to answer; and which I declare to be utterly untrue. I _do_ love your daughter; and love her well and honestly; and I would like to see the man, excepting yourself, who dare say otherwise. Some one has been lying to you; and can I but find him out, he shall pay for it. _You_, Kate, don't believe it?' said he, turning to the girl, who stood by, with blanched cheek, and the tears in her eyes. 'No, no, Ned; I do not; nor will father, when he's calm,' said she, taking the old man's hand. 'Some person has been slandering you to him; but he'll get over it soon.' Rhoneland drew his hand hastily from her, and turning to Ned, said: 'Leave the house! I have already told you to do so. Will you wait until you are thrust from it? Begone, I say!' 'Go, go, Ned, for _my_ sake!' exclaimed Kate, pushing him toward the door. 'He'll never be right while you are here. Go, _dear_ Ned, go.' 'I can't go before I've told your father how matters stand.' 'No matter for that now,' said Kate, earnestly; 'I'll make all right; go, go!' Half pushing, half persuading him, she finally induced him to leave the house. 'Friend Ned seems in a hurry,' said a voice in his ear, when he had gone but a hundred yards. 'Has sweet little Kate been unkind? Has she told you that she loved Michael Rust? Ha! ha! Or has old dad been crabbed? Ha! ha! A queer old boy that dad of hers, Ned; a queer old fellow; full of freaks! Do you know he hinted to me that he thought you had an eye on Kate, and wanted to run off with her? Wasn't that a good one, Ned? Ha! ha! It makes me laugh to think of it. He didn't know that Michael Rust was the fellow; that _he_ was the one to guard against.'