“Thibs!”
“Well, there, then, I won’t say much, my darling; but don’t you fret. You’ve both done quite right, for there’s a pynte beyond which no one can go.”
“But if we could win him back to—”
“Make you marry that man Crellock! Oh, my darling, there’s no winning him back. I said nothing and stood by you both to let you try, and I was ready to forgive everything; but oh, my pet! I knew how bad it all was from the very first.”
“No, no, Thibs, you didn’t think him guilty when he was sent out here.”
“Think, my dear! No: I knew it, and so did Sir Gordon and Mr Bayle, but for her sake they let her go on believing in him. Oh! my dear, only that there’s you here, I want to know why such a man was ever allowed to live.”
“Thibs, he is my father,” cried Julia angrily.
“Yes, my dear, and there’s no changing it, much as I’ve thought about it.”
Julia stood thinking.
“I shall go to him,” she said at last, “with you, and tell him why we have left him. I feel, Thibs, as if I must ask him to forgive me, for I am his child.”