them. "If you want to speak to me, write it!" he said, with rage and
suffering in every line of his face. He tore from his pocket his little
book, filled with blank leaves, and threw it at Toller's head. "Write,"
he repeated. "If you murder me with your screeching again, look out for
your skinny throat--I'll throttle you."

Cristel picked up the book. She was gratefully sensible of her father's
interference. "He shall know what you said to him," she promised the old
man. "I'll write it myself."

She took the pencil from its sheath in the leather binding of the book.
Controlling himself, the lover whom she hated advanced towards her with a
persuasive smile.

"Have you forgiven me?" he asked. "Have you been speaking kindly of me? I
think I see it in your face. There are some deaf people who can tell what
is said by looking at the speaker's lips. I am too stupid, or too
impatient, or too wicked to be able to do that. Write it for me, dear,
and make me happy for the day."

Cristel was not attending to him, she was speaking to me. "I hope, sir,
you don't think that father and I are to blame for what has happened this
morning," she said. He looked where she was looking--and discovered, for
the first time, that I was in the room.

He had alluded to his wickedness a moment since. When his face turned my
way, I thought it bore witness to his knowledge of his own character.

"Why didn't you come to my side of the house?" he said to me. "What am I
to understand, sir, by seeing you here?"