And he went off to the cottage in a meek and maudlin manner, which made his subsequent conduct a most bewildering surprise. For, on the following morning, Mrs. Ellmer was not to be seen, and, on her next appearance in public some evenings later, it was evident that her husband had made a forcible appeal to her memory of old times by giving her a black eye. In the meantime Babiole was wild, shy and unapproachable by either her father or me. This state of affairs being untenable, and his wife's very small provision of whisky exhausted, Mr. Ellmer in the course of the afternoon took a dispirited farewell of us, armed with a note to the stationmaster at Aberdeen, which I explained would obtain him a free railway-pass to London. He thanked me for my courtesy, but was by no means disarmed by it. In the midst of a sentimental leave-taking, he suddenly flashed up into ferocity as I reminded him that his wife and daughter were well and safe with each other, which must be some comfort in the prolonged absence from them which the claims of Art forced upon him.
'Well and safe!' he repeated, his face resuming the brutal lowering look which had, under the amenities of social intercourse, sunk into a placid animal contentment. 'Yes, I should hope so. For I can tell you it would be a bad time for those who had anything to do with it when my little girl was anything else but well and safe.'
The man was in earnest,—genuine brutal earnest. Without again offering me his hand, and with merely a nod by way of last salutation, he left me in the study, where we had been holding this last interview, with impulsive abruptness. I sat down and looked at the fire, glad the man was gone, and thinking no more of him, but of his fair little daughter, and of the best means of effacing the uncomfortable impression made by this violent and unwelcome irruption into our old harmonious intercourse.
I had been occupied thus about ten minutes, disturbed by no sound but the dashing of the rain of a sharp April shower against the windows, when the hall-door was pushed open again, and the hoarse gruff voice I had hoped to hear no more broke upon my unwilling ears again.
'Come, no nonsense, aren't you safe with your own father?' I heard Mr. Ellmer say angrily, to the accompaniment of plaintive pleadings and protests from Babiole, whom, the next moment, he dragged in before me. He had not waited for her to put on a hat, but had thrown over her head her mother's mackintosh, which he now pulled off, leaving her pretty brown hair tumbling in disorder about her eyes. She was pitifully shy and unhappy, poor child, and she shrank back with crimson cheeks as her father drew her arm firmly through his, and brought her close up to me as I stood, in great anger and perturbation, on the hearthrug.
'Mr. Maude,' he said, 'you will excuse a father's solicitude.'
He had been making up that opening as he came along I felt sure, from the pompous effect with which he produced it. He raised his hand as I was bursting into an angry protest, and continued—
'You have obtained my daughter's consent and my consent to becoming her affianced husband.' This, too, was a studied phrase, brought out with pedantic decision. 'On that understanding I leave her and her mother in this neighbourhood with confidence, and I call upon you to swear——'
But here Babiole broke away from him, and retreating quickly to the other side of the table, out of reach of the rough paternal arm, she cried out, with burning cheeks and flashing blue eyes—
'Papa, you are insulting Mr. Maude, and I can't listen. He has been the best friend we ever had; nobody knows how good he is; and now for you, who ought to thank him,—honour him for what he has been to us,—to talk as if you mistrusted him, as if we mistrusted him,—Oh, it is too horrible! I can't bear it! How can we stay here after this? How, if we do stay here, can we look him in the face? He is the best man in all the world, and the kindest, and the cleverest; and oh! you might have trusted him, and not have brought this shame upon us!'