You never enter my door again." And he turned his back furiously upon her.
This terrible denunciation overpowered poor Mary's resolution; she clung to him in terror.

"Oh, mercy, mercy, papa! I'll explain to _you_, have pity on your child!" Bartley flung her so roughly from him that she nearly fell, "You are my child no more." But at that moment in strode William Hope, looking seven feet high, and his eyes blazing.

"Liar and hypocrite," he roared, "_she never was your child_!" Then, changing to a tone of exquisite love, and stretching out both his hands to Mary, "SHE IS MINE!" Mary, being now between the two men, turned swiftly first to one, then to the other, and with woman's infallible eye knew her own flesh and blood in that half-moment.

She uttered a cry of love and rapture that went through every heart that heard it; and she flung herself in a moment upon her father's bosom.
He whirled her round like a feather on to his right arm, then faced both her enemies, Clifford and Bartley, with haughty defiance, head thrown back, and eyes that flashed black lightning in defense of his child..