“I insist,” he cried. “I will not allow these clandestine correspondences to be carried on. Give me the letter.”
“Father, I cannot,” she said firmly.
“Am I to take it from you by force?” he cried. “Am I, a gentleman who has struggled all these years to make himself the model from which society is to take its stand, who has striven so hard for his children, to be disgraced by you?”
No answer.
“Heaven knows how I have struggled, and it seems that two of my children must have been born with some base blood in their veins, and to be for ever my disgrace.”
Claire raised her eyes to his full of pitying wonder.
“See how your—no, God help me!” he cried wildly, “I dare not utter his name. See how you have disgraced your married sister—lowered me in the eyes of society. I am almost ruined, and just at a time when I had succeeded in placing your brother well. And now, see here—see here!”
He tore a note from his breast, and held it out rustling in his trembling hand.
“Here—I will not punish you more by reading it aloud,” he said; “but it is from my own son.”
“From Fred?”