'You hear what your mother says. What else can I say?' he answered feebly; 'it's very painful to me—all this—but you must take your own course.'
'I see I must,' said Mark, and left the room.
'You've been very hard with the boy, Jane,' said her husband, when they were alone, and she had sat for some time with a book open but unread before her; 'I really do think you've been very hard.'
'Do you want to encourage him against his mother?' she asked.
'No, no, you know I don't, Jane. Anything you think right—but I think you were hard.'
'If I was, it was for his good,' she said; 'I have done what I thought right, and we have sat up long enough. We can do no good by talking over it any more, Matthew. Perhaps Mark will think differently to-morrow.'
Trixie had been waiting for Mark in the adjoining room into which she beckoned him as he passed the door. 'How did it end?' she whispered. 'You were very quiet in there; is it settled?'
'Yes, it's settled,' he said, 'I'm to go, Trixie; I shall have to shift for myself. They won't have me here any longer!'
'Oh, Mark!' cried Trixie. 'Take me with you, do, it will be so horrid at home with only Martha and Cuthbert. You and I always got on together; let me come too!'
'I can't,' said Mark, 'not yet—by-and-by, perhaps, Trixie, when I'm a rich man, you know, we can manage it—just now I shall hardly be able to keep myself.'