Bitter words arose to his lips; his heart was full of scorn and indignation, but he controlled it, and answered, as calmly as before, but with an unmoved face:
“I regret that you have been so unfortunate—speculating is very precarious business, but I can never consent to your becoming an inmate of Wycliffe, or of the home where I reside. It would not be right that I should overlook the past and treat you as if you had been guilty of no wrong; you have no right to expect me to entertain anything of either respect or affection for you, even though the same blood may flow in our veins—you have forfeited all right and title to any such feelings. I must, on the other hand, frankly confess to an aversion for you, but I would harbor no ill-will, I would do you no injury even though I cannot tolerate your presence.”
“Is this your creed?” burst forth Mr. Dalton, unable to control himself any longer. “Is this your boasted forgiveness of your enemies—your ‘good-will toward men?’”
“You do not wish to be forgiven—you have no real sorrow for your sin. If any effort of mine could serve to make you truly repentant before God, I would not spare it. If you were sick and needy, I would minister to you, for my Master’s sake, as I would to any other stranger. But your feelings toward me are unchanged—were it not for what I possess, you would not even now make these overtures to me, and all idea of our residing under the same roof, or of sharing anything in common, is entirely out of the question. Still, I repeat, I bear you no malice, or cherish no spirit of revenge toward you, and to prove it, since you have been so unfortunate, I will make over to you, if Editha does not object, the ten thousand dollars which Mr. Forrester bequeathed to me, and which has remained untouched since she invested it for me. The interest of that will give you a comfortable living during the remainder of your life, if you do not touch the principal.”
A perfect tornado of wrath raged in Sumner Dalton’s breast at this calmly spoken but unalterable decision.
“So you will deign to give me, your father, a paltry ten thousand out of your exhaustless revenue!” he sneered, with exceeding bitterness.
“I owe you nothing on the score of relationship,” Earle answered, coldly; “and as for the ‘paltry ten thousand,’ allow me to remind you that you did not consider it in that light when Mr. Forrester bequeathed it to me.”
Again Mr. Dalton flushed.
How all his sins, one after another, were being visited upon himself.
With a fearful look of rage and hate convulsing his features, he leaned toward Earle and hissed: