‘No, he went out at twelve o’clock, and he’s never been back since. I feel as if I must do something; I can’t bear with it, Marian. He tells me I’m the curse of his life—yes, he said that. I oughtn’t to tell you, I know I oughtn’t; but it’s more than I can bear. I’ve always tried to do my best, but it gets harder and harder for me. But for me he’d never be in these bad tempers; it’s because he can’t look at me without getting angry. He says I’ve kept him back all through his life; but for me he might have been far better off than he is. It may be true; I’ve often enough thought it. But I can’t bear to have it told me like that, and to see it in his face every time he looks at me. I shall have to do something. He’d be glad if only I was out of his way.’
‘Father has no right to make you so unhappy,’ said Marian. ‘I can’t see that you did anything blameworthy; it seems to me that it was your duty to try and help Annie, and if it turned out unfortunately, that can’t be helped. You oughtn’t to think so much of what father says in his anger; I believe he hardly knows what he does say. Don’t take it so much to heart, mother.’
‘I’ve tried my best, Marian,’ sobbed the poor woman, who felt that even her child’s sympathy could not be perfect, owing to the distance put between them by Marian’s education and refined sensibilities. ‘I’ve always thought it wasn’t right to talk to you about such things, but he’s been too hard with me to-day.’
‘I think it was better you should tell me. It can’t go on like this; I feel that just as you do. I must tell father that he is making our lives a burden to us.’
‘Oh, you mustn’t speak to him like that, Marian! I wouldn’t for anything make unkindness between you and your father; that would be the worst thing I’d done yet. I’d rather go away and work for my own living than make trouble between you and him.’
‘It isn’t you who make trouble; it’s father. I ought to have spoken to him before this; I had no right to stand by and see how much you suffered from his ill-temper.’
The longer they talked, the firmer grew Marian’s resolve to front her father’s tyrannous ill-humour, and in one way or another to change the intolerable state of things. She had been weak to hold her peace so long; at her age it was a simple duty to interfere when her mother was treated with such flagrant injustice. Her father’s behaviour was unworthy of a thinking man, and he must be made to feel that.
Yule did not return. Dinner was delayed for half an hour, then Marian declared that they would wait no longer. They two made a sorry meal, and afterwards went together into the sitting-room. At eight o’clock they heard the front door open, and Yule’s footstep in the passage. Marian rose.
‘Don’t speak till to-morrow!’ whispered her mother, catching at the girl’s arm. ‘Let it be till to-morrow, Marian!’
‘I must speak! We can’t live in this terror.’