CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
THE DOBRÉES' GOOD NAME.
My father's florid face looked almost as rigid and white as my mother's had done. He stood in the doorway, with a lamp in his hand (for it had grown quite dark while my mother and I were talking), and the light shone full upon his changed face. His hand shook violently, so I took the lamp from him and set it down on the table.
"Go down to Mrs. Murray," he said, turning savagely upon my mother. "How could you be so rude as to leave her? She talks of going away. Let her go as soon as she likes. I shall stay here with Martin."
"I did not know I had been away so long," she answered, meekly, and looking deprecatingly from the one to the other of us.—"You will not quarrel with your father, Martin, if I leave you, will you?" This she whispered in my ear, in a beseeching tone.
"Not if I can help it, mother," I replied, also in a whisper.
"Now, confound it!" cried Dr. Dobrée, after she had gone, slowly and reluctantly, and looking back at the door to me—"now just tell me shortly all about this nonsense of yours. I thought some quarrel was up, when Julia did not come home to dinner. Out with it, Martin."
"As I said before, there is not much to tell," I answered. "I was compelled in honor to tell Julia I loved another woman more than herself; and I presume, though I am not sure, she will decline to become my wife."
"In love with another woman!" repeated my father, with a long whistle, partly of sympathy, and partly of perplexity. "Who is it, my son?"
"That is of little moment," I said, having no desire whatever to confide the story to him. "The main point is that it's true, and I told Julia so, this afternoon."