CHAPTER I.


"You are obstinate and ungrateful. You would rather see me suffer
and die, than bend your stubborn pride in the effort to obtain
relief for me. You will not try to save me."

The thin, hysterically unsteady voice ended in a sob, and the frail
wasted form of the speaker leaned forward, as if the issue of life
or death hung upon an answer.

The tower clock of a neighboring church began to strike the hour of
noon, and not until the echo of the last stroke had died away, was
there a reply to the appeal.

"Mother, try to be just to me. My pride is for you, not for myself.
I shrink from seeing my mother crawl to the feet of a man, who has
disowned and spurned her; I cannot consent that she should humbly
beg for rights, so unnaturally withheld. Every instinct of my nature
revolts from the step you require of me, and I feel as if you held a
hot iron in your hand, waiting to brand me."

"Your proud sensitiveness runs in a strange groove, and it seems you
would prefer to see me a pauper in a Hospital, rather than go to
your grandfather and ask for help. Beryl, time presses, and if I die
for want of aid, you will be responsible; when it is too late, you
will reproach yourself. If I only knew where and how to reach my
dear boy, I should not importune you. Bertie would not refuse
obedience to say wishes."