"If you mean will I wed a girl I do not love——"
I was answering, when my father burst out—
"Bah! Do not sicken me with play-actor rubbish. Are you going to act like a man of sense and of honour, or like an idiot?"
"I will not offer marriage to Mistress Ryther," I replied.
"Then begone out of the house," he thundered, "and let me never see your fool-face again, and if there is anything in a father's curse, may it cling to you as long as you live."
At this moment, Mr. Butharwick entered the room with a feeble step. He stretched out his hands imploringly to my father, and said in a voice not his own—
"My honoured patron, my friend and benefactor," and something more which was indistinguishable, for his mouth began to work strangely. Then he staggered, and would have fallen but my father caught him in his arms, and laid him on the couch.
I called for help, and servants came hurrying into the room, to whom my father gave order about fetching a surgeon, and this, that, and the other, adding—
"Bid Savage, the attorney, come to me without delay." Then, turning to me, he said: "Will you go, or must I have you thrown out by the servants?"
My dear old tutor's face looked my way, and I thought I saw a beseeching in his eyes, but I could do nothing. I went out, haunted by the drawn face and the wistful eyes, and the face of my father hard as if cut in marble. It was my last sight of both of them.