His eyes are upon me, and, at every second's delay, they gather additional sternness.

Oh, how awful they are in their just wrath! When was father, in his worst and most thunderous storms, half so dreadful?
half so awe-inspiring?
"What sort of an interview could it have been to which there was such a close ?" he says, as if making the reflection more to himself than to me; "speak! is it true ?" I can no longer defer my answer.

One thing or another I must say: both eyes and lips imperatively demand it.

Twice, nay _thrice_ I struggle--struggle mightily to speak, and speak well and truly, and twice, nay, three times, that base fear strangles my words.

Then, at length--O friends! do not be any harder upon me than you can help, for indeed, _indeed_ I have paid sorely for it, and it is the first lie that ever I told; then, at length, with a face as wan as the ashes of a dead fire--with trembling lips, and a faint, scarcely audible voice, I say, "No, it is not true!" "_Not true ?_" he echoes, catching up my words quickly; but in his voice is none of the relief, the restored amenity that I had looked for, and for the hope of which I have perjured myself; equally in voice and face, there is only a deep and astonished anger.
"_Not true!_--you mean to say that it is _false_!" "Yes, false!" I repeat in a sickly whisper.