Outside, the silence of the fir wood was broken by the cheery lay of a robin in one of the apple-trees of the garden, and once there came the low, soft cooing of a dove, which the soft, sunny autumn day had deluded into the belief that it was spring.
Then all was again silent for a time, and it seemed to Judith, as she looked up into the stern, thoughtful face, with its dark, fierce eyes, that the heavy throbbing of her heart drowned the beat of the clock; at other times the regular tick-tack grew louder, and she could hear nothing else.
“You’re not cross with me, father?” she said at last.
“No, it was no fault of yours. Ah, Judy, my girl, I was so proud of your bonny face, but it seems as if it is like to be a curse to you—to us both.”
“Father!”
“Yes, my lass; and I don’t know which of they two we ought to be most scared of—Caleb Kent or the captain.”
“Oh! father!” cried Judith; and she let her head fall upon his knee, as she sobbed wildly.
“I need hardly ask you, then, my girl,” he said, as with tender, loving hands, he took her head and bent over it, with his dark, fierce eyes softening. “You like him, then?”
She looked up proudly.
“He loves me, father.”