"She has not seemed to want advice."
"How should a girl not want advice in so great a matter?"
"How, indeed? But yet she has needed none."
"Has she told thee," he asked, "what it is in her mind to do?"
"I think so."
"Has she said that she would refuse the man?"
"Yes; that certainly was her purpose."
"And given the reasons?" he said, almost trembling as he asked the question.
"Yes, she gave her reasons."
"And didst thou agree with her?" Before she could reply to this Mrs. Roden felt herself compelled to pause. When she thought of that one strongest reason, fully as she agreed with it, she was unable to tell the father of the girl that she did so. She sat looking at him, wanting words with which she might express her full concurrence with Marion without plunging a dagger into the other's heart. "Then thou didst agree with her?" There was something terrible in the intensity and slowness of the words as he repeated the question.