"Not now, Beth," and Beth left her again.
There was a pause, and then her father came; she heard his dragging step. When he appeared he showed the last shreds of his natural feeling—shame that at Ellis's order he should come to advise his child.
"Judith," he began, "Mr. Ellis tells me that—that you——"
"I have declined to marry him," she said.
"Why is this?" he asked. "It has seemed so plain that you would take him."
Judith hung her head. Had it then been so plain? "I have changed."
"Come," said the Colonel with an attempt at briskness. "You can't mean this. There's nothing against Ellis that I can see."
"Nothing?" she asked. "And you say that, father? What will our friends say."
"Girls marry out of their station," he urged uneasily. "We can bring him in, Judith."
"Father," she demanded, "what hold has he on you, to make you say this?"