"Here, drink this," he said, hastily pouring out a glass of wine.
She took it eagerly. After a moment he said: "Christine, I do not understand all this. I was merely saying that my clerk, Mr. Fleet, was not expected—"
The point of endurance and guarded self-control was past, and she cried, half-hysterically: "Am I never to escape that man? Must every one I meet speak to me as if I had murdered him?"
Then she added, almost fiercely: "Living or dead, never speak to me of him again! I am no longer a child, but a woman, and as such I insist that his name be dropped between us forever!"
Her father gave a low exclamation of surprise, and said, "What! was he one of the victims?" (this being his term for Christine's rejected suitors).
"No," said she; "I am the victim. He will soon be at rest, while I shall be tormented to the grave by—" She hardly knew what to say, so mingled and chaotic were her feelings. Her hands clenched, and with a stamp of her foot she hastily left the room.
Mr. Ludolph could hardly believe his eyes. Could this passionate, thoroughly aroused woman be his cold, self-contained daughter? He could not understand, as so many cannot, that such natures when aroused are tenfold more intense than those whom little things excite. A long and peculiar train of circumstances, a morbid and overwrought physical condition, led to this outburst from Christine, which was as much a cause of surprise to herself afterward as to her father. He judged correctly that a great deal had occurred between Dennis and herself of which he had no knowledge, and again his confidence in her was thoroughly shaken.
At first he determined to question her and extort the truth. But when, an hour later, she quietly entered the parlor, he saw at a glance that the cold, proud, self-possessed woman before him would not submit to the treatment accepted by the little Christine of former days. The wily man read from her manner and the expression of her eye that he might with her consent lead, but could not command without awakening a nature as imperious as his own.
He was angry, but he had time to think. Prudence had given a decided voice in favor of caution.
He saw what she did not recognize herself, that her heart had been greatly touched, and in his secret soul he was not sorry now to believe that Dennis was dying.