“Because,” he replied and there was no suspicion of a softening heart in his hard voice, “I hold you responsible for everything! If I had listened to the dictates of my own heart, we would never have come to New York—but I was weak enough to yield to your persuasions.”
“Surely, Hugh,—” Marjorie’s lips quivered pitifully as she started to protest, but he authoritatively motioned her to silence.
“I tried to argue with you at the time and impress upon you just what an environment such as this would mean to our children, but you wouldn’t listen to me!” he raged. “You told me that you, their mother, should know what was best for them. Well, there they are! Look at your daughter, the pitiful creature of a dissolute man’s fancy, and your son, a——”
“Stop, Hugh!” Marjorie commanded. “You seem to forget one thing, and that is, that they are your children as well as mine.”
“On the contrary,—I have not forgotten it. I am simply trying to impress upon them that I am not to blame for their misfortunes.”
“Then you believe that I alone am entirely responsible for this awful calamity?”
“Entirely and absolutely,” he answered.
“And you call yourself a man!” Marjorie turned upon him, her eyes ablaze with anger. “You inspire me only with contempt! Last night I thought because of the children I could never leave you! But now, for the very same reason, I refuse to remain or to allow them to remain with you another day!”
This was rather more than the angry man had bargained for. In his way he loved Howard and Elinor, and his pride, too, was at stake.
“Do you mean,” Hugh endeavored to conceal his anxiety but it was nevertheless poignant, “that you will take Elinor and Howard away from me?”