'I saw you,' she said calmly. His warmth made her feel sad. 'I saw you stop at the gate.'
'You did? But you weren't at the window?'
'I saw you through the glass of the front-door.' Her voice grew fainter, more reluctant.
'Then you were watching?' In the dark he seized her with such violence, and kissed her so vehemently, that she was startled out of herself.
'Oh! Henry!' she exclaimed.
'Call me Harry,' he entreated, his arm still round her waist; 'I want you to call me Harry. No one else does or ever has done, and no one shall, now.'
'Harry,' she said deliberately, bracing her mind to a positive determination. She must please him, and she said it again: 'Harry; yes, it has a nice sound.'
Ephraim sat reading the 'Signal' in the parlour when she arrived home at five minutes to ten. Imbued then with ideas of duty, submission, and systematic kindliness, she had an impulse to attempt a reconciliation with her father.
'Good-night, father,' she said, 'I hope I've not kept you up.'
He was deaf.