"John, can't you speak? Don't you see the frightful danger?"
"Love, try and be calmer."
"How can I? Remember—remember Caroline."
"Nay, we are not talking of her, but of a girl whom we know, and have had good opportunity of knowing. A girl, who, whatever may have been her antecedents, has lived for six months blamelessly in our house."
"Would to Heaven she had never entered it! But it is not too late. She may leave—she shall leave, immediately."
"Mother!" burst out Guy. Never since she bore him had his mother heard her name uttered in such a tone.
She stood petrified.
"Mother, you are unjust, heartless, cruel. She shall NOT leave; she shall NOT, I say!"
"Guy, how dare you speak to your mother in that way?"
"Yes, father, I dare. I'll dare anything rather than—"