"Do you mean, sir, to take away your wife's character?" said Sir Marmaduke, coming up in wrath. "Remember that she is my daughter, and that there are things which flesh and blood cannot stand."
"She is my wife, sir, and that is ten times more. Do you think that you would do more for her than I would do,—drink more of Esill? You had better go away, Sir Marmaduke. You can do no good by coming here and talking of your daughter. I would have given the world to save her;—but she would not be saved."
"You are a slanderer!" said Sir Marmaduke, in his wrath.
Mr. Glascock turned round to the father, and tried to quiet him. It was so manifest to him that the balance of the poor man's mind was gone, that it seemed to him to be ridiculous to upbraid the sufferer. He was such a piteous sight to behold, that it was almost impossible to feel indignation against him. "You cannot wonder," said Mr. Glascock, advancing close to the master of the house, "that the mother should want to see her only child. You do not wish that your wife should be the most wretched woman in the world."
"Am not I the most wretched of men? Can anything be more wretched than this? Is her life worse than mine? And whose fault was it? Had I any friend to whom she objected? Was I untrue to her in a single thought?"
"If you say that she was untrue, it is a falsehood," said Sir Marmaduke.
"You allow yourself a liberty of expression, sir, because you are my wife's father," said Trevelyan, "which you would not dare to take in other circumstances."
"I say that it is a false calumny,—a lie! and I would say so to any man on earth who should dare to slander my child's name."
"Your child, sir! She is my wife;—my wife;—my wife!" Trevelyan, as he spoke, advanced close up to his father-in-law; and at last hissed out his words, with his lips close to Sir Marmaduke's face. "Your right in her is gone, sir. She is mine,—mine,—mine! And you see the way in which she has treated me, Mr. Glascock. Everything I had was hers; but the words of a grey-haired sinner were sweeter to her than all my love. I wonder whether you think that it is a pleasant thing for such a one as I to come out here and live in such a place as this? I have not a friend,—a companion,—hardly a book. There is nothing that I can eat or drink. I do not stir out of the house,—and I am ill;—very ill! Look at me. See what she has brought me to! Mr. Glascock, on my honour as a man, I never wronged her in a thought or a word."
Mr. Glascock had come to think that his best chance of doing any good was to get Trevelyan into conversation with himself, free from the interruption of Sir Marmaduke. The father of the injured woman could not bring himself to endure the hard words that were spoken of his daughter. During this last speech he had broken out once or twice; but Trevelyan, not heeding him, had clung to Mr. Glascock's arm. "Sir Marmaduke," said he, "would you not like to see the boy?"