"You will see mother when she comes back in the steamer—won't you, father?" pleaded she.
"She may not wish to see me."
"I know she will be glad to see you."
Mr. Gracewood was moody and agitated again. I saw that he was struggling with his feelings, and I hoped that the gentle words of his daughter would lead to a reconciliation. She seemed like an angel of peace to me, as she threw oil upon the troubled waters. But I felt like an intruder in such a scene, and I left the Castle on the pretence of attending to the horses. I did not return, feeling that I was not needed in such an interview. I made up a bed in the block house, and was about to turn in, when Mr. Gracewood joined me. He told me he had attended to all the wants of his daughter, and that she would sleep in the Castle.
"I know you were astonished at what you heard, Phil Farringford," said he, as we lay down in the block house.
"I was, sir, and I felt very bad when your daughter wept."
"I am afraid, from what Ella says, that I am quite as much to blame as her mother. Indeed, I had begun to think before that the fault was not all on her side. When my father died, he left a handsome fortune, which was divided between my brother and myself. I was educated at one of the best colleges in the west, and intended to study the profession of law; but the death of my father placed sufficient wealth in my possession to enable me to live in luxury without any exertion. I was married, and for a few years lived very happily.
"I had always been very fond of fishing and hunting, and while in college I spent all my vacations in camp, on the prairie or in the forest. After I was graduated, I used to devote two or three months of the year to these pursuits. When I was married, I was not willing to forego this luxury,—for such it was to me,—and without going into the painful details, this subject became a source of difference between us. I thought my wife was unreasonable, and she thought the same of me. Six years ago she told me, if I went on my usual excursion, she would leave me, never to return. I could not believe she was in earnest. I had reduced the period of my absence to six weeks, and when I returned found my house closed. Mrs. Gracewood was at the residence of her brother, Mr. Sparkley. I sent her a note, informing her of my return.
"She wrote me in reply, that if I would promise to abandon my annual hunting trip, or take her with me, she would come back. I replied that I would travel with her wherever she desired to go, and at any time except in June and July, and that a woman was out of place in a camp of hunters. She positively refused to return or to see me on any other than her own conditions. I met Ella every week at my own house, where she came in charge of a servant. Neither of us would yield, and life was misery to me. The next spring I placed all my property in the hands of my brother, with instructions to pay my wife an annuity of three thousand dollars a year, and made a will in favor of my child.
"I had been to this region before, and hunted upon the island where I now live. To me it was a paradise, and I determined to spend the rest of my days there. I felt that I had been robbed of all the joys of existence in the love of my wife and child. Taking the materials for my house, furniture, a piano, and my library, with a plentiful supply of stores, I came up the river in a steamer, and have lived here ever since."