red lips parted into a smile,--for in her sleep the virgin dreamed,--a
happy dream! It was a sight to have touched a father's heart, to have
stopped his footstep, and hushed his breath into prayer. And call not
Adam hard--unnatural--that he was not then, as men far more harsh than
he--for the father at that moment was not in his breast, the human man
was gone--he himself, like his model, was a machine of iron!--his life
was his one idea!

"Wake, child, wake!" he said, in a loud but hollow voice. "Where is
the gold thou hast hidden from me? Wake! confess!"

Roused from her gracious dreams thus savagely, Sibyll started, and saw
the eager, darkened face of her father. Its expression was peculiar
and undefinable, for it was not threatening, angry, stern; there was a
vacancy in the eyes, a strain in the features, and yet a wild, intense
animation lighting and pervading all,--it was as the face of one
walking in his sleep, and, at the first confusion of waking, Sibyll
thought indeed that such was her father's state. But the impatience
with which he shook the arm he grasped, and repeated, as he opened
convulsively his other hand, "The gold, Sibyll, the gold! Why didst
thou hide it from me?" speedily convinced her that her father's mind
was under the influence of the prevailing malady that made all its
weakness and all its strength.

"My poor father!" she said pityingly, "wilt thou not leave thyself the
means whereby to keep strength and health for thine high hopes? Ah,
Father, thy Sibyll only hoarded her poor gains for thee!"

"The gold!" said Adam, mechanically, but in a softer voice,--"all--all
thou hast! How didst thou get it,--how?"