w what people are saying of
you;--that you are mad, and that you must be locked up, and your
child taken away from you, and your property?"

"Who are the people that say so? Yourself;--and, perhaps, Lady
Rowley? Does my wife say so? Does she think that I am mad? She did
not think so on Thursday, when she prayed that she might be allowed
to come back and live with me."

"And you would not let her come?"

"Pardon me," said Trevelyan. "I would wish that she should come,--but
it must be on certain conditions."

"What I want to know is why she was turned out of your house?"

"She was not turned out."

"What has she done that she should be punished?" urged Sir Marmaduke,
who was unable to arrange his questions with the happiness which had
distinguished Major Magruder. "I insist upon knowing what it is that
you lay to her charge. I am her father, and I have a right to know.
She has been barbarously, shamefully ill-used, and by G---- I will
know."

"You have come here to bully me, Sir Marmaduke Rowley."

"I have come here, sir, to do the duty of a parent to his child;
to protect my poor girl against the cruelty of a husband who in
an unfortunate hour was allowed to take her from her home. I will
know the reason why my daughter has been treated as though,--as
though,--as though--"

"Listen to me for a minute," said Trevelyan.

"I am listening."

"I will tell you nothing; I will answer you not a word."

"You will not answer me?"

"Not when you come to me in this fashion. My wife is my wife, and
my claim to her is nearer and closer than is yours, who are her
father. She is the mother of my child, and the only being in the
world,--except that child,--whom I love. Do you think that with
such motives on my part for tenderness towards her, for loving care,
for the most anxious solicitude, that I can be made more anxious,
more tender, more loving by coarse epithets from you? I am the
most miserable being under the sun because our happiness has been
interrupted, and is it likely that such misery should be cured by
violent words and gestures? If your heart is wrung for her, so is
mine. If she be much to you, she is more to me. She came here the
other day, almost as a stranger, and I thought that my heart would
have burst beneath its weight of woe. What can you do that can add
an ounce to the burden that I bear? You may as well leave me,--or at
least be quiet."

Sir Marmaduke had stood and listened to him, and he, too,