“Father, if General Garnet comes here only as your guest, I will welcome him with every possible attention; I will try to make him feel at home, and endeavor to render his sojourn with us in every other way agreeable; but if he comes here as my suitor——” Here her voice died away.
“Well!”
It is impossible to convey the short, curt, galvanic strength and abruptness with which he jerked, as it were, this syllable out, and brought Alice up. It was like throwing the lasso suddenly around her neck, and jerking her up face to face with him. And such a face! It is impossible to paint the grim determination of the locked jaws, armed with the wiry stubble beard, bristled up with fierceness, and the ferocity of the darkly-gathered frown that screwed his glance upon her pallid face, that screwed it into her very brain. Alice turned deadly sick, her eyes filmed over, and she sank back in her chair. She did not faint or lose consciousness, for the next instant she felt her father’s iron hand upon her fragile shoulder, and her father’s awful voice in that low, deep, suppressed tone of fierce, immutable determination, saying:
“Miss Chester, it is not as your suitor, but as your husband, that General Garnet will come this evening. I command you to receive him as such.”
And he left her.
CHAPTER V.
THE HUSBAND’S AUTHORITY.
Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When overtasked at length,
Both Love and Hope beneath the weight give way;
Then with a statue’s smile, a statue’s strength,