FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   >>  
his neck, sobbing against his heart, her tears and entreaties on his lips, Ben Denning had no feeling and no care for anyone but his daughter. He took her view of things at once. "She HAD been badly used. It WAS a shame to tie a girl like Dora to sermons and such like. It was like shutting her up in a convent." Dora's tears and complaints fired him beyond reason. He promised her freedom whatever it cost him. And while he sat in his private room considering the case, all the racial passions of his rough ancestry burning within him, Basil Stanhope called to see him. He permitted him to come into his presence, but he rose as he entered, and walked hastily a few steps to meet him. "What do you want here, sir?" he asked. "My wife." "My daughter. You shall not see her. I have taken her back to my own care." "She is my wife. No one can take her from me." "I will teach you a different lesson." "The law of God." "The law of the land goes here. You'll find it more than you can defy." "Sir, I entreat you to let me speak to Dora." "I will not." "I will stay here until I see her." "I will give you five minutes. I do not wish to offer your profession an insult; if you have any respect for it you will obey me." "Answer me one question--what have I done wrong?" "A man can be so intolerably right, that he becomes unbearably wrong. You have no business with a wife and a home. You are a d---- sight too good for a good little girl that wants a bit of innocent amusement. Sermons and Christmas trees! Great Scott, what sensible woman would not be sick of it all? Sir, I don't want another minute of your company. Little wonder that my Dora is ill with it. Oblige me by leaving my house as quietly as possible." And he walked to the door, flung it open, and stood glaring at the distracted husband. "Go," he said. "Go at once. My lawyer will see you in the future. I have nothing further to say to you." Basil went, but not to his desolate home. He had a private key to the vestry in his church, and in its darkness and solitude he faced the first shock of his ruined life, for he knew well all was over. All had been. He sank to the floor at the foot of the large cross which hung on its bare white walls. Grief's illimitable wave went over him, and like a drowning man he uttered an inarticulate cry of agony--the cry of a soul that had wronged its destiny. Love had betrayed him to ruin. All he had done must be abandoned. A
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132  
133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   >>  



Top keywords:
walked
 

private

 

daughter

 

Little

 

company

 
leaving
 
Oblige
 

Sermons

 
innocent
 

unbearably


business

 

amusement

 
Christmas
 

minute

 
illimitable
 

drowning

 
betrayed
 
abandoned
 

destiny

 

wronged


uttered

 

inarticulate

 

husband

 

lawyer

 

future

 

distracted

 

glaring

 

ruined

 

solitude

 

darkness


desolate

 
vestry
 

church

 

quietly

 

freedom

 
promised
 

complaints

 
reason
 

Stanhope

 
called

permitted
 

burning

 
racial
 
passions
 

ancestry

 

convent

 
Denning
 

feeling

 
entreaties
 

sobbing