"I did tell Mr. Yorke that, father. Pray, pray, be patient. It was long ago; we were talking together about I know not what, and it slipped from me that you kept money in a strong-box. That was all."
"All," said the old man, bitterly, and flinging her arm away from him, the wrist all black and bruised with his angry clutch. "What more, or worse, could you have told than the one secret I had bid you keep? You told him the exact sum, too, I'll warrant? Two thousand pounds!"
"Yes, father, I did. It was very wrong, and I was very sorry directly I had done it. But I knew the secret would be safe with a gentleman like Mr. Yorke."
"A gentleman! A cheat, an impostor, a common rogue!"
"Oh no, oh no, father!"
"But I say 'yes.' To-morrow he will have the handcuffs on him! What! Have you tears for him, and none for me, you slut! Perhaps you showed him where the box was kept, as well as told him! Did you, did you?"
There was something in Harry's frightened face that made her father rise and lock the door.
"Speak low!" said he, in an awful voice; "you have something to tell me.
Tell it."
"Only that I love him, father—oh, so much!" pleaded Harry, passionately. "Indeed, indeed, I could not help it! I tried to love Sol, because you wished it, but it was no use; I felt that even before Richard came. We walked every day together for weeks and weeks, and he was so different from Sol, so bright and pleasant, and he loved me from the first, he said. He told me, too, that you had listened with favor to his suit, or, at all events, had not refused to listen—that there was good hope of your consenting to it, and without that hope he knew he could not win me. I only promised to be his on that condition. Speak to me, father; pardon me, father! Don't look at me so. He never meant to thieve, I am sure of that. You asked of him some warrant of his wealth, some proof that he could afford to marry me. You would not have done that had you set your face utterly against him. And I think—I fear—though Heaven is my witness that I knew nothing of it until now, that he took this money only to bring it back to you again, and win your favor. It was an ill deed, if he has really done it, which even yet I do not credit; but it was done for my sake; then for my sake, father, pity him, pardon him!" She had thrown herself upon her knees beside the old man's chair; her long hair had come unfastened, and trailed upon the sanded floor; her hands were clasped in an agony of supplication. No pictured Magdalen ever looked more wretched or more beautiful.
"You have more to tell?" said the old man, harshly.