Silent caresses, mingled with sobs and tears on Elsie's part, passed between them; and at length Mr. Dinsmore said, "Elsie, my daughter, I hope you are now ready to make the confession and promises I require?"
"Oh, papa! dear papa!" she said, looking up into his face with the tears streaming down her own, "have I not been punished enough for that? and can you not just punish me whenever I disobey you, without requiring any promise?"
"Stubborn yet, Elsie," he answered with a frown. "No; as I have told you before, my word is as the law of the Medes and Persians, which altered not. I have required the confession and promise, and you must make them."
He set her down, but she lingered a moment. "Once more, Elsie, I ask you," he said, "will you obey?"
She shook her head; she could not speak.
"Then go," said her father. "I have given you the last caress I ever shall, until you submit."
He put the letters into her hand as he spoke, and motioned her to be gone; and Elsie fled away to her own room, to throw herself upon the bed, and weep and groan in intense mental anguish.
She cared not for the letters now; they lay neglected on the floor, where they had fallen unheeded from her hand. The gloom on her pathway seemed all the darker for that bright but momentary gleam of sunshine. So dark was the cloud that overshadowed her that for the time she seemed to have lost all hope, and to be able to think of nothing but the apparent impossibility of ever regaining her place in her father's heart. His last words rang in her ears.
"Oh! papa, papa! my own papa!" she sobbed, "will you never love me again? never kiss me, or call me pet names? Oh, how can I bear it! how can I ever live without your love?"
Her nerves, already weakened by months of mental suffering, could hardly bear the strain; and when Fanny came into the room, an hour or two later, she was quite frightened to find her young charge lying on the bed, holding her head with both hands and groaning, and speechless with pain.
"What's de matter darlin'?" she asked; but Elsie only answered with a moan; and Fanny, in great alarm, hastened to Mr. Dinsmore's room, and startled him with the exclamation: "Oh, Massa Horace, make haste for come to de chile! she gwine die for sartain, if you don't do sumfin mighty quick!"
"Why, what ails her, Fanny?" he asked, following the servant with all speed.
"Dunno, Massa; but I'se sure she's berry ill," was Fanny's reply, as she opened the door of Elsie's room, and stepped back to allow her master to pass in first.
One glance at Elsie's face was enough to convince him that there was some ground for her attendant's alarm. It was ghastly with its deadly pallor and the dark circles round the eyes, and wore an expression of intense pain.
He proceeded at once to apply remedies, and remained beside her until they had so far taken effect that she was able to speak, and looked quite like herself again.
"Elsie!" he said in a grave, firm tone, as he placed her more comfortably on her pillow, "this attack has been brought on by violent crying; you must not indulge yourself in that way again."
"I could not help it, papa," she replied, lifting her pleading eyes to his face.
"You must help it in future, Elsie," he said sternly.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she struggled to keep them back.
He turned to leave her, but she caught his hand, and looked so beseechingly in his face, that he stopped and asked in a softened tone, "What is it, my daughter?"
"Oh, papa!" she murmured in low, tremulous accents, "love me a little."
"I do love you, Elsie," he replied gravely, and almost sadly, as he bent over her and laid his hand upon her forehead. "I love you only too well, else I should have sent my stubborn little daughter away from me long ere this."
"Then, papa, kiss me; just once, dear papa!" she pleaded, raising her tearful eyes to his face.
"No, Elsie, not once until you are entirely submissive. This state of things is as painful to me as it into you, my daughter; but I cannot yield my authority, and I hope you will soon see that it is best for you to give up your self-will."
So saying, he turned away and left her alone; alone with that weary home-sickness of the heart, and the tears dropping silently down upon her pillow.
Horace Dinsmore went back to his own room, where he spent the next half hour in pacing rapidly to and fro, with folded arms and contracted brow.
"Strange!" he muttered, "that she is so hard to conquer. I never imagined that she could be so stubborn. One thing is certain," he added, heaving a deep sigh; "we must separate for a time, or I shall be in danger of yielding; for it is no easy matter to resist her tearful pleadings, backed as they are by the yearning affection of my own heart. How I love the perverse little thing! Truly she has wound herself around my very heart-strings. But I must get these absurd notions out of her head, or I shall never have any comfort with her; and if I yield now, I may as well just give that up entirely; besides, I have said it; and I will have her to understand that my word is law."
And with another heavy sigh he threw himself upon the sofa, where he lay in deep thought for some moments; then, suddenly springing up, he rang the bell for his servant.
"John," he said, as the man appeared in answer to his summons, "I shall leave for the North to-morrow morning. See that my trunk is packed, and everything in readiness. You are to go with me, of course."
"Yes, Massa, I'll 'tend to it," replied John, bowing, and retiring with a grin of satisfaction on his face. "Berry glad," he chuckled to himself, as he hurried away to tell the news in the kitchen, "berry glad dat young Massa's got tired ob dis dull ole place at last. Wonder if little Miss Elsie gwine along."
Elsie rose the next morning feeling very weak, and looking pale and sad: and not caring to avail herself of her father's permission to join the family, she took her breakfast in her own room, as usual. She was on her way to the school-room soon afterwards, when, seeing her papa's man carrying out his trunk, she stopped and inquired in a tone of alarm—
"Why, John! is papa going away?"
"Yes, Miss Elsie; but ain't you gwine along? I s'posed you was."
"No, John," she answered faintly, leaning against the wall for support; "but where is papa going?"
"Up North, Miss Elsie; dunno no more 'bout it; better ask Massa Horace hisself," replied the servant, looking compassionately at her pale face, and eyes brimful of tears.
Mr. Dinsmore himself appeared at this moment, and Elsie, starting forward with clasped hands, and the tears running down her cheeks, looked piteously up into his face, exclaiming, "Oh, papa, dear are you going away, and without me?"
Without replying, he took her by the hand, and turning back into his room again, shut the door, sat down, and lifted her to his knee. His face was very pale and sad, too, but withal wore an expression of firm determination.
Elsie laid her head on his shoulder, and sobbed out her tears and entreaties that he would not leave her.
"It depends entirely upon yourself, Elsie," he said presently. "I gave you warning some time since that I would not keep a rebellious child in my sight; and while you continue such, either you or I must be banished from home, and I prefer to exile myself rather than you; but a submissive child I will not leave. It is not yet too late; you have only to yield to my requirements, and I will stay at home, or delay my journey for a few days, and take you with me. But if you prefer separation from me to giving up your own self-will, you have no one to blame but yourself."
He waited a moment, then said: "Once more I ask you, Elsie, will you obey me?"
"Oh, papa, always, if—"
"Hush!"