“It is cruel, monstrous!” exclaimed Sir Philip, after a long pause. “But, O my boy, what have I done? I thought to make you honoured and loved of all. My sole desire was to make you happy and content. But, my boy, you will forgive me. I humble myself to you. I was wrong.”

“Hush, hush, father!” cried Charley sternly, as he raised one arm, and laid it upon his father’s shoulder. “What have I to forgive in you?”

He turned again, gazing with a despairing, stunned expression upon Ella’s face.

“But,” cried Sir Philip hastily, “what has been done?—Mrs Brandon, what medical advice have you had?”

“The best that money can procure,” said Mrs Brandon, in a choking voice. “We have done all that is possible.”

There was a dead silence now reigning in that chamber, broken at last by Sir Philip, as, forgetful of all else but the fearful wrong that had been done the suffering girl before him, he bent over Ella to kiss her tenderly.

“O my child, my child!” he moaned, “my poor child! I came here angry and bitter to upbraid; but has it come to this? that you, so young, so pure, must leave us to go where all is love, to bear witness to my selfish pride and ambition? Heaven forgive me!” he sobbed, as his tears fell fast upon the little hand he held, “heaven forgive me! for, in my blindness, I have broken two loving hearts—sacrificed them to my insensate pride! Blind—blind—blind that I was, not to remember that the love of a pure true-hearted woman was a gem beyond price. Has it indeed come to this, that there is nothing to be done but for a poor, weak, blind old man to ask forgiveness for your wrongs?—Charley,” he sobbed, turning to his son, “my boy—my pride, the hope of my old age, forgive me, for I can never forgive myself!”

“Father, for heaven’s sake, hush!” cried Charley in his blank despair. “This is too much. I cannot bear it. I have nothing to forgive. It was our fate; but, O!” he said huskily, as he drew Ella nearer to his breast, “it is hard—hard—hard to bear!”

Here Mrs Brandon interposed; it was too much for the sufferer to encounter; and gently drawing the young man away, she bent over to whisper to Ella, but, in obedience to a whispered wish, she drew back, as Charley, weak now and trembling, gazed in his father’s quivering face for a few moments, and then, as did the patriarch of old, he fell upon the loving old man’s neck and kissed him, and wept sore.

The silence then in that sad chamber was painful; but at last, trembling in every limb, Sir Philip crept to the bedside, to take the place lately occupied by his son—to pass one arm beneath Ella’s neck, and then, with all a father’s gentle love, to raise her more and more, till her head, with all that glory of bright fair hair, rested upon his breast, and his old and wrinkled cheek touched the vein-mapped, transparent forehead.

“If I could die for you, my child,” he murmured; “if my few poor useless days could be given, that you might live, I should be content. Heaven hear my prayer!” he cried piteously. “Poor sufferer! Has she not borne enough? Have we not all tried our best to make her way thorny and harsh? O my child, I loved you from the first, though my pride would not let me acknowledge it, and I left you that day moved almost beyond human power to bear; while, on my return, even the eyes of my wife’s poor semblance seemed, from the canvas, almost to look—to look down upon me with reproach. But you must not leave us—surely our prayers must be heard—you, so young, so gentle! My poor blighted flower! But you will live to bless us both—to be my stay and comfort—to help a weak old man tenderly along his path to the grave—to be the hope and stay of my boy—to be my pride! I ask you—I ask you this—I, his father, ask you to live for us, to bless us both with your pure and gentle love! Charley my boy, here—quick—quick—My God, she is dying!”

A faint shudder had passed through Ella’s frame as Sir Philip uttered that exclamation, and her pinched pale face looked more strange and unearthly than ever; but she had heard every word uttered by the old man; words which, feeble as she was, had made her heart leap with a strange joy, sending life and energy once more through every vein and nerve, but only with the effect of a few drops of oil upon an expiring flame: the light sprang up for a few moments, and then seemed to sink lower and lower, till, with a shiver of dread, Mrs Brandon softly approached.

She paused though, for at that moment Ella’s eyes softly unclosed, to gaze trustingly at Sir Philip Vining. Then they were turned to Charley; and as they rested there, her pale lips parted, but no word came. A faint sad ............