"My child, my poor, deceived child, come to me. Come to your father's arms."
He would have drawn his daughter into his arms, but Regine stepped before him and said in a husky voice:
"Be composed, Toni, you will have a fearful blow from your false lover; you will despise him and his deceptions from your very soul."
This sudden sympathy had in it something alarming, but fortunately Toni had never been troubled with weak nerves; she released herself now from this double embrace, and drew back from them both as she said, with quiet decision:
"I could not do that, for Will is beginning to please me better now than he has ever pleased me before in his life."
"So much the worse," interrupted her father. "Poor child, you know nothing, suspect nothing. Your lover has fought a duel, and for a woman, too."
"I know it, papa."
"For Marietta," screamed her aunt.
"I know it, dear aunt."
"But he loves Marietta," they both cried out with one voice.