The thoroughly distressed and disheartened father shrank before the gaze of the lover, when this news was promulgated by Mr. Gouger.
"What swindle is this?" were the bitter words he heard. "Have you decided on another husband for your daughter, and come to break the news to me in this fashion?"
Mr. Gouger interfered, to protect the old man whose suffering was evidently already too acute.
"Hush!" he exclaimed. "Can't you see that you are killing him? Be careful!"
Roseleaf waved him back with a [sweep] of his arm.
"Your advice has not been asked," he replied, gutturally. "I can see some things, if I am blind. That girl has gone to the man she loves—the man he," indicating the father, "wanted her to marry. He is rich, and I am poor, and he has won! It is plain enough! And he pretended, day by day, to my face, that he had given her up for my sake; and she put her arms around me, and beguiled me into confidence, in order to strike me the harder at the end. Well, let him have her! I wouldn't take her from him. But there's an account between us that he may not like to settle. When you see your friend, tell him that!"
Mr. Fern heard these terrible sentences like a man in a dream. It could not be Roseleaf that was uttering them—the man to whom his young daughter had given the full affection of her innocent heart! He was mad to talk that way. Mad! mad!
"You will repent these rash statements," said the old gentleman, rising faintly from his seat. "You will repent them, sir, in sackcloth. I wish with all my heart that Mr. Weil was here, for he would at least try to help me find my child."
Mr. Gouger suggested that Mr. Weil would be at Midlands soon, as he had an invitation to the wedding.
"No," replied Mr. Fern, chokingly. "I received word from him to-day that he could not attend. He is out of the city."