Ethel believed that papa had advised otherwise.
'Advised! It should have been enforced! If he is fool enough to alter his name, and throw up all his certificates what is to become of him? He will get no practice in any civilized place, and will have to betake himself to some pestilential swamp, will slave his sisters to death, spend their money, and destroy them with ague. How can you sit still and look on, Ethel?'
'But what could I do?'
'Stir up my father to interfere.'
'I thought you always warned us against interfering with Henry Ward.'
He treated this speech as maliciously designed to enrage him. 'Ethel!' he stammered, 'in a case like this—where the welfare—the very life—of one—of your dearest friend—of Mary's, I mean—I did think you would have been above—'
'But, Tom, I would do my utmost, and so would papa, if it were possible to do anything; but it is quite in vain. Henry is resolved against remaining under British rule, and America seems to be the only field for him.'
'Much you know or care!' cried Tom. 'Well, if no one else will, I must!'
With which words he departed, leaving his sister surprised at his solicitude, and dubious of the efficacy of his remonstrance, though she knew by experience that Tom was very different in a great matter from what he was in a small one.
Tom betook himself to Bankside, and the first person he encountered there was his little friend Ella, who ran up to him at once.