Theodore did not answer, and she pleaded again: "You are sorry, are you not? Do let me fetch your father. Shall I?"
"Oh, yes, yes!"
He listened to her retreating footsteps, and it seemed ages before the key at length turned in the lock, and his father entered the room.
It was a forlorn-looking little figure, with pale cheeks and swollen eyelids, that stood shrinking before Mr. Barton's stern gaze.
"I am sorry," the boy murmured. "Won't you please forgive me, father?"
"It is not my forgiveness you want, Theodore. It was my wife you openly defied and insulted. When I first brought her home, she was ready to love you dearly, and would have done her best to fill the place of your dead mother. She has always been kind and considerate to you, and how have you repaid her? This afternoon I was ashamed of my son."
Theodore hung his head, and blushed with shame.
"I have heard the cause of the disturbance from Jane; and, once for all, let me tell you to avoid Tom Blake. Is that plain? Do you understand, and do you mean to obey?"
"Yes, father," Theodore answered, in a very small voice.
"If there is ever a repetition of the scene I partly witnessed to-day, I shall send you to a boarding-school at once. I should have dealt with you much more severely, if my wife had not begged me to be lenient with you. You had better go and try to make your peace with her. She is in the drawing-room."