The secret hung on a thread. Hope, after denouncing Bartley, as we have described, was rushing across to Mary, and what he would have said or done in the first impulse of his wrath, who can tell?
But the quick-witted Bartley took the alarm, and literally collared him. "My good friend," said he, "you don't know the provocation. It is the affront to her that has made me forget myself. Affronts to myself from the same quarter I have borne with patience. But now this insolent man has forbidden his son to court her, and that to her face; as if we wanted his son or him. Haven't I forbidden the connection?"
"We are agreed for once," said the Colonel, and carried his son off bodily, sore against his will.
"Yes," shrieked Bartley after him; "only I did it like a gentleman, and did not insult the young man to his face for loving my daughter."
"Let me hear what Mary says," was Hope's reply.
"Mr. Hope," said Mary, "did you ever know papa to be hard on me before? He is vexed because he feels I am lowered. We have both been grossly insulted, and he may well be in a passion. But I am very unhappy." And she began to cry again.
"My poor child," said Bartley, coaxingly, "talk it all over with Mr. Hope. He may be able to comfort you, and, indeed, to advise me. For what can I do when the man calls me a sharper, a villain, and a knave, before his son and my daughter?"
"Is it possible?" said Hope, beginning to relent a little.
"It is true," replied Mary.
Bartley then drew Hope aside, and said, "See what confidence I place in you. Now show me my trust is not misplaced." Then he left them together.