“Oh, Abel! my answer did not express the hundredth part of the love, the joy and the sorrow that strove in my heart at the time; but I had to control myself and speak quietly, almost indifferently, in the presence of my father.
“He replied by assuring me that he should approve my marriage with Mr. Force; that as for my calamity, it was no crime, no fault of mine, but the result of circumstances—that I was so perfectly and unquestionably innocent that I might tell the whole story to Mr. Force without losing a degree of his love and esteem.
“At that I became very much alarmed. I declared to my father that I should die on the spot if ever my suitor should be told the story of my humiliation; for under such circumstances I could not look him in the face and live.
“My father attempted to argue with me, to call me morbid, my thoughts and feelings extravagant, exaggerated; but the violence of my agitation bore him down and silenced him at last.
“‘What am I to say to Force?’ he inquired.
“‘Tell him anything you like—except the story of my fall—or that I can accept his suit.’
“‘You refuse him, then?’
“‘I must.’
“My father left me.
“I kept my room the whole of that day.