“To sneak back and play the pretty penitent and finger the old man’s money.” “We are poor, father.” “Poor, eh?” “The world has wronged us.” There was an unhallowed smirk on Zeus Gildersedge’s face. “What about your father?” he asked; “you didn’t come to see him. No, by God! He can die, and that’s about the best thing you think he can do.” “Father!” She stretched out her hands to him as though to stem back his taunting words. Zeus Gildersedge was a dying man; the bitterness of the approaching hour, the sordid realism of his past, only incensed him against his fate. There was none of the mild solemnity of death in that dark room. Nothing but malice seemed quick in the lean body, nothing but mocking anger alive in the dim eyes. “Is it my money you want?” he panted. “I am to be deserted, am I, and then squeezed on my death-bed like a sponge, to keep you and your blackguard from the gutter? Gold, is it? Curse them, they’re all scrambling for it—the parson, the doctor, that woman in the kitchen. What do they care about me—what do they care about me, I say? By God, wench, I won’t give you a farthing!” He sank back upon his pillows, seized with a spasmodic fit of coughing. His face grew dusky, his eyes suffused. The veins were turgid and swollen in the straining neck; one claw of a hand was hooked in the collar of his shirt. Joan stood and gazed at him, mute and impotent. His words had stunned her and she could not think. Rain came rattling against the window; storm-clouds darkened the room; the wind moaned in the chimney and whistled over the roof. The old man upon the bed had recovered his breath. He struggled up and gestured at her with one trembling hand, his eyes shining with a peculiar brightness in his dusky face. “Get out from here!” he cried. “Father!” “I’ll not be bled upon my death-bed. Away, you wastrel! Starve, starve! I’ll not pay for your shame.” She drew back from him, shuddering. An utter hopelessness descended upon her soul. She knew full well at last that there was no pity in her father’s heart. “I will go,” she said, moving towards the door. “Out of my house, you wanton.” He was leaning from his pillows, his face distorted, one outstretched hand pointing her away. Joan had opened the door; she halted for a moment on the threshold. “God forgive you,” she said. “Forgive me!” he screamed; “by God, you have the impudence of the devil!” Joan went out and closed the door, leaned against the wainscoting with her hand over her eyes. Slowly her strength came back to her. She passed down the old gallery, filled with sad memories of the past, took her hat from off the window-sill, and went down the stairs. In the dusk of the hall Mrs. Primmer met her. Joan swept by the woman without a word, unlatched the door, and went out into the wind and rain. But before night came Zeus Gildersedge lay dead. XXXIX