“Father, forgive me; but I overheard and understood your orders to Forrest.”
“By my soul, Margaret, this is perfectly insufferable!” exclaimed Major Helmstedt, starting up, and then sinking back into his chair.
But softly and suddenly Margaret dropped at his feet, clasped his knees, and in a voice freighted with her heart’s insupportable anguish, cried:
“Father! my father! hear me! hear me! hear your own lost Marguerite’s heartbroken child, and do not make her orphaned and widowed in one hour!”
“Orphaned and widowed in one hour!”
“Yes, yes, and most cruelly so, by the mutual act of her father and her husband.”
“By her father and husband?”
“Yes, yes. Am I not Ralph Houston’s promised, sworn wife? Oh, my father!”
“Death, girl! You call yourself his promised wife; you pray me to stay my hand, nor avenge your wrongs, nor vindicate my own honor; you who have been calumniated, insulted, and expelled from his house?”
“Not by him, father! not with his knowledge or consent! Oh, never! never! My life, my soul, upon his stainless faith!”