She let her father hear: "Father, you know that you are killing your child."
"I hear ye, my lass," said he.
"She will die, father."
"I hear ye, I hear ye."
"She will die, father."
He stamped furiously, exclaiming: "Who's got the law of her better and above a husband? Hear reason, and come and help and fetch down your sister. She goes!"
"Father!" Rhoda cried, looking at her open hands, as if she marvelled to see them helpless.
There was for a time that silence which reigns in a sickchamber when the man of medicine takes the patient's wrist. And in the silence came a blessed sound—the lifting of a latch. Rhoda saw Robert's face.
"So," said Robert, as she neared him, "you needn't tell me what's happened. Here's the man, I see. He dodged me cleverly. The hound wants practice; the fox is born with his cunning."
Few words were required to make him understand the position of things in the house. Rhoda spoke out all without hesitation in Sedgett's hearing.