“Oh, hold your tongue! Let me alone! Don’t I know what you are thinking in your heart all this time? You are saying to yourself that this is just what you always expected! Just what I deserved! You are glad of it in your heart! Glad to see me punished! Glad to see me mortified!” she cried fiercely, angry with her father because she was angry with herself, her betrayer and all the world.
“My dear Lyddy! My darling girl! I know you are not accountable for what you say now. I blame you for nothing, child, not even for your words. I could not have the cruelty to do it. But try to compose yourself and believe that we love you and will serve you and comfort you! Lyddy, my daughter, we cannot offer you the wealth and grandeur and luxuries that you have been lately used to, but, my dear, a safe home and solid comforts, and peaceful days and family affection you shall not lack, my girl—you shall never lack,” pleaded her father; and while he spoke he followed her up and down with outstretched arms ready to infold her, up and down, pleading with her, turning when she turned until at length she whirled around upon him and hissed at him through her set teeth, her hard words dropping like leaden bullets from the mold:
“Will—you—mind—your—own—business? I am of age! I thought I was Mrs. Randolph Hay, of Haymore! Lady of the manor here! I entered this house as its lawful mistress! For what? To find myself deceived, betrayed, entrapped! Now what am I! Something that must not even be named to respectable ears like yours!”
“Oh, my dear child! To me you are my wronged and blameless daughter! Well, rave on! I cannot help it, though it cuts my heart like a sword! Maybe it relieves you to talk like this. But presently I hope you will take thought and come home with me to be comforted,” pleaded John Legg.
Lamia burst into a cruel, sarcastic laugh.
“The greengrocer’s house on Market Street, Medge, of course, would be a perfect paradise to me! I can imagine the back parlor full of the fragrance of onions, leeks and other garden stuff from the shop, and enlivened with the music of the bell every time a customer opened the door! Not any for me, please! I may go on the stage, or on the street—why should I care where I go, what I do, or how I end—after this—so that I enjoy the pride of life in my prime?” she demanded, looking at the plain, good man before her with a cruel, sarcastic sneer.
He held out his arm to her, with a prayer in every look and gesture. He even ventured to lay his hand on her in tender compassion, but she broke away from him and resumed her wild walk.
Then he sank into an armchair beside him—he could follow her no further—and dropped his head upon his hands.
His wife Julia came to his side.
She has longed to go to him while he was following and pleading with his daughter, and getting nothing from her but insult for love. She had longed to lead him away from the ungracious and unseemly strife with evil and to say to him: “Leave the thankless and reckless woman to herself to recover her senses, if she ever had any, and come with me and rest.” But—she was a stepmother only to the willful girl, and she must not interfere between father and daughter.