"But your father," faltered Israel.
"My father is without bread; but once in twenty-four hours have I tasted food, and that a miserable morsel; but rather than accept your proposals, and lie down with shame, I would put the poison vial first to my father's lips, then to my own! Yes, Israel Yorke, there is a God, and He, in this house, when the last hope has gone out, when there is nothing but death before, gives me strength to spit upon your infamous proposals, and to die! Strength such as you will never feel in your death-hour!"
"Pretty talk, pretty talk," faltered Israel; "but what does it amount to? Talk on, still the fact remains; you and your father are starving, and you reject the offer of the only one who can relieve you."
She raised her eyes to heaven. She folded her hands upon her heaving breast. Her face was unnaturally pallid; her eyes unnaturally bright. As she stood, in an attitude so calm and severe, she was wondrously beautiful. Her voice was marked with singular elation,—
"O, my God! there must be a hell," she said. "There must be a place where the injustice of this world is made straight; else why does this man sit here, clad in ill-gotten and superfluous wealth, while my aged father, one of his victims, lacks at this hour even a crust of bread?"
Israel's feelings can only be described by a single word—"uncomfortable." He shifted nervously in his chair, and twirled his turban on the end of his finger; then rubbed his bald head, smoothed his white hair, and pulled his wiry whiskers.
"What in the devil did you come to see me for, if such was your opinion of me?"
"I came to see you as a last hope;" her countenance fell, and her tone was that of unalloyed despair. "I thought that remorse had been busy at your heart; that you wished to atone for the past by a just, although tardy, restitution. I thought——"
"Remorse! restitution!" laughed the Financier. "Come, I like that!"
"That knowing the utterly destitute condition of the father, you had summoned the daughter, in order to tender to her, at least, a portion of the wealth which you wrung from him——"