“And what did you say?” he asked.
“I said, ‘Very well, father; I will go.’”
“Brave little girl! And do you mean to say that your father—actually your father!—could contemplate giving you to that brute Henderson?”
“Oh, his wife can persuade him to do anything, and she has persuaded him that Mr. Henderson would be a very good match for me. It’s too disgusting,” continued May, her fair face flushing and her eyes sparkling, “and I told them both that my own mother would never have allowed such a person to come near me.”
“He shall never come near you, my dear child.”
“And he threatened—oh, don’t go near him or speak to him, Mr. Temple.”
“Did he threaten me?” asked John, disdainfully.
“He said some folly or other—he is horrid. He looks like a murderer, if he isn’t one.”
“I have a very great idea that he is one.”
“At all events he behaved shamefully to that poor girl, and yet my father’s wife praises him, and makes up to him in every way.”