“Where is she now?” exclaimed the other excitably. “Where is she now?”
“I cannot say.”
“Yes, you can, Robert Carewe!” Mrs. Tanberry retorted, with a wrathful gesture. “You know well enough she's in her own room, and so do I—for I tried to get in to comfort her when I heard her crying. She's in there with the door bolted, where you drove her!”
“I drove her!” he sneered.
“Yes, you did, and I heard you. Do you think I couldn't hear you raging and storming at her like a crazy man? When you get in a temper do you dream there's a soul in the neighborhood who doesn't know it? You're a fool if you do, because they could have heard you swearing down on Main Street, if they'd listened. What are you trying to do to her?—break her spirit?—or what? Because you'll do it, or kill her. I never heard anybody cry so heart-brokenly.” Here the good woman's own eyes filled. “What's the use of pretending?” she went on sorrowfully. “You haven't spoken to her kindly since you came home. Do you suppose I'm blind to that? You weren't a bad husband to the poor child's mother; why can't you be a good father to her?”
“Perhaps you might begin by asking her to be a good daughter to me.”
“What has she done?”
“The night before I went away she ran to a fire and behaved there like a common street hoyden. The ladies of the Carewe family have not formerly acquired a notoriety of that kind.”
“Bah!” said Mrs. Tanberry.
“The next morning, when I taxed her with it, she dutifully defied and insulted me.”