Page:That Lass o' Lowrie's.djvu/231

Rh "What's up wi' me?" he muttered. "I conna see—I conna—"

Joan stepped forward.

"Feyther," she said. Then memory seemed to return to him. An angry light shot across his face. He flung out his hands and groaned:

"What!" he cried, "tha art theer, art tha?" and helpless and broken as he was, he wore that moment a look Joan had long ago learned to understand.

"Ay, feyther," she answered.

It appeared as if, during the few moments in which he lay gasping, a full recognition of the fact that he had been baffled and beaten after all—that his plotting had been of no avail—forced itself upon him. He made an effort to speak once or twice and failed, but at last the words came.

"Tha went agen me, did tha?" he panted. "Dom thee!" and with a struggle to summon all his strength, he raised himself, groping, struck at her with his clenched hand, and failing to reach her, fell forward with his face upon the bed.

It was all over when they raised him and laid him back again. Joan stood upright, trembling a little, but otherwise calm.