A sigh of relief escaped Mr. Manners. He was not childless, then. It was still in his power to make reparation, or if not to make, to offer it. The latter alternative trod close upon the heels of the new-born impulse to atone for his harshness; the reflection intruded itself that his overtures towards a reconciliation might be declined. Many years had passed since there was peace between him and his son, and during all those years he had been, figuratively speaking, rolling in gold. So vast was his fortune that, living the life he did, he could not spend one half of it, and every day of his existence its colossal proportions grew. To Mark Inglefield he had made a most liberal allowance, and Inglefield, cunning and careful of the future, had occasionally drawn largely upon the great contractor's generosity. The requests he made were never refused, the reasons for them never inquired into. Mr. Manners had set store upon his wealth before he discarded his son; it meant then distinction, fame, political power, in which he would have a share. Kingsley's sense of right, no less than the ingenuousness and unselfishness of his nature, would have caused him to lay at his father's feet the honor and glory which he would assuredly have won had he been allowed to follow the career which, in his young manhood, had been mapped out for him. The rich man's heart was tortured as the image of Kingsley rose before him: the frank, laughing mouth, the bright eyes, the eager manner, smote him now with more than the force of actual blows. Those he could have parried or returned; not so the accusing voices from the past which proclaimed him tyrannical, ruthless, and unjust. The manner of Kingsley's life, as indicated by Mr. Parkinson's championship of his wife and daughter, was an added sting to the torture he was suffering. Kingsley and those with whom he had, without a murmur, thrown in his lot, had borne privation and poverty cheerfully, and had won a place in the esteem and affections of the poor people around them of which the highest in the land might have been proud. And all this time it had been in his, the father's, power to have lightened and brightened their lot without in the remotest degree feeling the loss; and all this time they had lived and labored without uttering one Word of reproach against him whose unreasoning, dictatorial conduct had made their life one of daily, hourly struggle; and all this time they had made no appeal to him upon whom they had a just claim, but trod, with courage and resignation, the thorny paths into which he had thrust them. Well might he hide his face in his hands with shame. He thought of Nansie, and of the surprise he felt when he first saw her--surprise at her modesty and gentleness of manner, surprise at the soft, pleading voice, surprise that she was a lady, fitted to grace any position to which wealth could raise her; to grace and adorn it, and to bring into it qualities of goodness which would have made her a