cannot grant your request; and hereafter you will please consider my
daughter as a stranger, and my door as closed against you! Not a word, sir;
not a word--my resolution is taken unchangeably. I can not and will not
permit my child to associate with those whom I know to be unworthy. Sir, I
will hear no word of explanation! Go!"

Hadley felt the unkindness and injustice of Mandeville's remarks, and had
he merely consulted his own feelings, he would have retired at once, and
never again intruded himself upon the society of one who could show himself
so destitute of the characteristics of a gentleman. But there was another
than himself that must suffer should he go, as his feelings prompted, from
the premises of her father forever. Love was all-powerful in his breast at
that hour, and choking down the rising emotions of anger and excitement, he
attempted to reason with the stern man before him.

"But you surely," he commenced, "do not mean to drive me from your door
without a hearing? You certainly are too much of a gentleman for that."

"I mean, sir, that I will allow no base, thieving miscreant to enter my
house; nor will I permit a daughter of mine to hold intercourse with such
villains! And more than that, I will tell you, sir, that I am not to be
dictated to, as to whose company I shall keep, or whom admit to my house,
by any such worthless, gallows-deserving scamp as yourself!"

This was more than Hadley could bear. He had resolved not to become
excited, but anger rose in his bosom in spite of his will, and he answered
in deep, excited tones:

"Sir, no man can apply such epithets to me and go unchastised. I demand a
recantation of your unfounded charges, and an apology for their utterance."