“No! Do your will. I cannot blame you!”
“And Ralph?”
Like the rising of an inward light came a transient glow of faith from her beautiful face.
“Ralph will think no evil,” she said, softly.
“Yet let me assure you, Miss Helmstedt, that though Ralph Houston’s chivalric confidence in you may be unshaken; yet his father will never now consent to the continuance of his engagement with you. You heard what Colonel Houston said?”
“I heard,” said Margaret, with gentle dignity.
“You heard? what then!”
“Mr. Houston is twenty-eight years of age, and his own master.”
“And what follows, pray, from that?”
“That in this matter he will do as seems to him right!”