"Father," said Bessie, with her clear, steady eyes on him, "you speak of love as empty air, but it is not so. What but love induced me to submit myself to your will? I love you. To me Hall is nothing; a cottage with love in it, where I might sit at your feet and kiss your hand, were a thousand times dearer to me than this new, cold house, where all is hard, and love does not settle to live." She drew a long breath. "I love you, therefore I have bowed myself before you; and I love Anthony, and for his sake I have made the greatest sacrifice any mortal can make. I have given my life up to another, whom as yet I can neither love nor respect, that I might by so doing obtain from you pardon for my brother." "A fine pattern of love Anthony has shown!" "Father, there is great sorrow and sickness in his house, and he is far away, venturing his life for a cause that he thinks right. He may never return. His babe is dead, his wife ill. See what misery there is hanging over him! Nothing but my love for my brother, my desire to see him again in your arms, has kept me here. When I was plagued about Fox--that is to say, when I first heard about him as seeking me--I had resolved never to marry him, and rather than marry him, I would have run away to Anthony; he would have taken me in. But I thought of you alone in this house, deserted by both your children, and I thought that by staying here I might do something for Anthony, find a proper time for speaking in his favour, and so I stayed; and then, father, when you told me in what peril the property stood, when I saw what agony of mind was yours, when I thought that with the break down of the whole ambition of your life, your grey hairs would certainly be bowed to the dust--then I conquered myself and gave up my will to yours. There is love that is more than a mere word, it is a mighty force, and oh! father, I would that you knew more of it! Father, you--your own self--have suffered most of all through your lack of love. I have seen how the consequences of your harshness towards Anthony have fallen on you, and you have suffered. I dare say you may have loved him, but I think, as you say love is nought but a word, that you can have had only pride in him, and not love--for love suffereth long and is kind. He rebelled against you because you showed him pride--not love. He offended your ambition because you had set your heart on his taking Julian and winning with her Kilworthy; he embittered your heart because he married the daughter of a man that was your enemy. What has been wounded in you has been ambition, not love. Well, Anthony has done wrong. He ought to have considered you. He has ill repaid you all that was lavished upon him from infancy. But, father, if you had given him love, instead of setting your ambition on him, it would not have been so light a matter for him to resist your will. I feel his conduct more than do you. It is because of him that I have married Fox.