“I will ask you the same question, father, that Dora asked her mother: Do you wish me to utter a falsehood? You have been as strict with me about the truth as any one.” “This talk is all cant, Robert,” replied his father, angrily. “You know as well as I that you will regret it in the future. It’s only your thundering will. Just think how ashamed you will be to introduce her into your own circle by and by; as commonly brought up as she has been, and such a frightful little squab, with red hair, too.” Robert’s eyes blazed now with a dangerous sparkle. “I am not at all afraid, sir, that I shall ever have cause to be ashamed of my wife. Her mother is more of a lady now than you are a gentleman, with the insinuation that you cast at her to-night.” Mr. Ellerton winced. He had repented what he had said as soon as the words were uttered; but it enraged him beyond measure to be reproved by his son, and he shouted: “Silence, you young rascal! If you ever call that girl wife again in my presence, I swear I’ll thrash you. I ask you again, will you give up this girl?” “No, sir.” “You will not?” “I will not.” They sat gazing into each other’s eyes for several minutes; those two, so firm and unyielding, until Mr. Ellerton, unable longer to endure his son’s steadfast look, turned angrily away, and, in a voice hoarse with wrath, said: “Go to your room, you ungrateful boy, and remain there until I decide your fate.” Robert picked up his cap, which had fallen to the floor, and moved to the door. He opened it, and turning back, said, respectfully: “Good-night, father.” There was no reply, and he passed out, up the broad and handsome stairway, into his own room; where he sat in deep and earnest thought for several hours. At length, feeling tired and worn, he retired, and slept soundly until morning. Poor Mr. Ellerton, down stairs, paced the room all night long. He was angry, but he was more, he was crushed. It was, indeed, as Squire Moulton meant it should be, a heavy blow, not only to his pride, but to all his hopes and plans for his boy in the future. He intended to educate his boy in the most thorough manner, giving him every advantage and privilege that money could procure, and he had hoped to see him contract a brilliant marriage in the future. Those plans were now crushed in a single day—were blighted, never to revive again, and—“by a nobody,” he said, bitterly, to himself; and he cursed his foe with the deadliest curses. He felt that he had never wronged the man otherwise than by marrying the girl he had loved. But he knew that, besides this, there was another reason, which, though he himself was not to blame for it, the squire might see fit to revenge upon him. It was a secret between them, and they had never breathed it to mortal ears.