"Father, father! do you know me?" she cried.
He stared vacantly in her face. Did he know her? Perhaps he did. Who can tell how far the spirit lived in that dead body? But if know her he did, gone was the time when he could hold intercourse with that long slighted, and now bitterly avenged daughter.
In vain she clung weeping around his neck, in vain she called on him to reply. He merely looked at her in the same vacant way, and said childishly, "Never mind."
"But you know me—you know me, father!" said Rachel.
Again, he looked at her vacantly, and still the only words he uttered were, "Never mind."
"His mind is gone for ever," said the doctor.
Rachel did not answer. She clasped her hands, and looked with wistful sadness on the old man's blank face. With a pang she felt and saw that now, indeed, her dream was over—that never, never upon earth, should she win that long hoped-for treasure—her father's love.
CHAPTER XIV.
In the grey of the morning, Rachel brought her father to the humble little home which he had voluntarily forsaken years before.
Thomas Gray was not merely a paralyzed and helpless old man, he was also destitute. Little more than what sufficed to cover his current expenses did Rachel find in his dwelling; his furniture was old and worthless; and the good-will of the business scarcely paid the arrears of rent.