"Dear mother, I submit. Obedience to your commands certainly ought
not to lead me astray; yet I feel that I stand at the cross-roads,
longing to turn and flee from the way whither your finger points. I
have no hope of accomplishing any good, and nothing but humiliation
can result from the experiment; but I will go. Sometimes I believe;
that fate maliciously hunts up the things we most bitterly abhor,
and one by one sets them down before us--labelled Duty. When do you
wish me to start?"

"To-night, at nine o'clock. In the letter which you will take to
father, I have told him our destitution; and that the money spent
for your railway ticket has been obtained by the sacrifice of the
diamonds and pearls, that were set around my mother's picture; that
cameo, which he had cut in Rome and framed in Paris. Beryl so much
depends on the impression you make upon him, that you must guard
your manner against haughtiness. Try to be patient, my daughter, and
if he should seem harsh, do not resent his words. He is old now, and
proud and bitter, but he once had a tender love for me. I was his
idol, and when my child pleads, he will relent."

Mrs. Brentano laid her thin hot fingers on her daughter's hands,
drawing her down to the edge of the bed; and Beryl saw she was
quivering with nervous excitement.

"Compose yourself, mother, or you will be so ill that I cannot leave
you. Dr. Grantlin impressed upon us, the necessity of keeping your
nervous system quiet. Take your medicine now, and try to sleep until
I come back from Stephen & Endicott's."

"Do not go to-day."