"I have nothing else to give," answered Mr. Cleverdon. "I no longer call this place mine. The place where I was born, and for which I have toiled, which I have dreamed about, loved--I have nothing more, nothing at all." He was filled with bitter pity for himself. "I, in my destitution, must thank you that it has seemed worth while to you to come and see me." "Father!" gasped Bessie. The old man proceeded: "I cannot forget that all this comes to pass because you disregarded my wishes. Had you married Julian, had you even proposed to marry her, this could not have happened. It is this," his voice rang hard and metallic, and the light in his eye was the glisten of a flint; "it is this that is the cause of all. It brings my grey head into the dust. It deprives the Cleverdons of a place in the county, it blots them out with a foul smear." The pen he had been holding had fallen on a parchment, and, with his finger, the old man wiped the blotch and streaked it over the surface. "I could not marry Julian," said Anthony, with difficulty controlling himself. "A man is not to be driven to the altar as is a poor girl." He turned to his sister. "I am sorry for your sake that Hall goes--not for mine; I do not care for it. It has been the curse that has rested on and blasted your heart, father, turning it against your own children, marring the happiness of my mother's life, taken all kindness and pity out of yours. It is like a swamp that sends up pestilential vapours, poisoning all who have aught to do with it." The old man raised himself in his seat, and stared at him with wide-open eyes. This was not what he had deemed possible, that a child of his, a Cleverdon, should scoff at the land on which he was born, and which had nourished him. "What has been cast into thankless soil?" asked Anthony. "All good feelings you ever had for my mother, all, everything, has been sacrificed for it. But for Hall, she would have never taken you, but have been happy with the man of her heart. But for Hall, I would have been better reared, in self-restraint, in modesty, and kept to steady work. But for Hall, Bess's most precious heart would not have been thrown before that--that Fox! Very well, father. I am glad Hall goes. When it is gone clean away, I will see you again, and then maybe you will be more inclined for reconciliation." The old man's blood was roused. "It is easy to despise what can never be yours. The grapes are sour." "The grapes were never other than sour," retorted Anthony, "and have set on edge all teeth that have bitten into them. Sister--come!" He went out of the door. CHAPTER LVI. EURYDICE.