With poor Alison it was too often a case of 'out of Scylla and into Charybdis,' as her father generally resumed precisely where Cadbury left off.
'Is he gone?' asked Sir Ranald, taking her hand in his thin, wasted, diaphanous fingers, and patting it tenderly on the coverlet of his bed.
'Who, papa?'
'Cadbury. I would speak to you about him again.'
She made a little impatient and disdainful moue at the name, but her father, heedless of it, resumed—
'In the winter of my days I have been compelled to bury myself, and you too, darling, in this dead-alive, man-forgotten place—Chilcote; but I shall soon be out of it, and you—my poor child—you—you——'
His voice failed him, and Alison's heart failed her too as he spoke in this pitiful strain.
'As for loving Lord Cadbury,' said Alison, with a voice that seemed full of tears, 'do not talk to me of that when you are so ill and feeble, as it wrings my very soul to oppose you. I may—nay, I must—be grateful for the service his money gift——'
'Say gifts, Alison.'
'Well, gifts have done for you; but I can do no more, my dislike of him is so intense and rooted.'