“It is your father, Alice! Oh, God, save us!” exclaimed Mrs. Chester, just as Colonel Chester, with one violent kick of his boot, burst open the door, and, purple and convulsed with rage, stood among them.
“Who admitted this man? Who sent for him?” he demanded, in a furious voice.
“I did. I sent for him,” said the mother, pale with fear and feebleness, but wishing to shield her daughter.
“I did! I wrote him a note,” murmured the daughter, in a dying voice, sick with terror, but wishing to save her mother.
“Traitors! Shameless household traitors! so there are a pair of you! a desirable wife and daughter! a very suitable mother and daughter! But I’ll find a way to punish you both. I’ll——”
Here he was interrupted by Sinclair, who, turning to him, said, in a composed but stern voice:
“Colonel Chester, visit your anger and reproaches upon me, who knew of your prohibition, not upon those who possibly knew nothing about it.”
“You have the insolence to tell me, sir, to remind me, that you knew of my prohibition to cross my threshold! while standing here in my house, in the very heart of my house, my wife’s bedchamber!” exclaimed Colonel Chester furiously.
“In your wife’s sick-chamber, sir, where, as a Christian minister, it is my bounden duty sometimes to come.”
“And, d—— you, from whence I’ll put you out!” exclaimed the infuriated man.