"Come in here; and I will tell you," he said, throwing open the door of his study.
Rose listened in silence, while he repeated to her the substance of Elsie's confession, mingled with expressions of his own anger and indignation.
"Poor child!" murmured Rose, as he concluded; "Horace, don't be hard with her; she must have suffered a great deal in these last three days."
"Yes," he answered in a moved tone; "when I think of that, I can scarcely refrain from going to her, taking her in my arms, and lavishing caresses and endearments upon her; but then comes the thought of her allowing that scoundrel to do the same, and I am ready almost to whip her for it." His face flushed hotly, and his dark eyes flashed as he spoke.
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Rose, half frightened at his vehemence, "you cannot mean it?"
"Rose," he said, pacing to and fro in increasing excitement, "the fellow is a vile wretch, whose very touch I esteem pollution to a sweet, fair, innocent young creature like my daughter. I told her so, and positively forbade her to so much as look at him, or permit him to see her face, if it could be avoided, or to recognize, or hold the slightest communication with him in any way. Yet in defiance of all this, she allows him to take her hand and hold it for, I don't know how long, put his arm around her waist and kiss her a number of times. Now what does such disobedience deserve?"
"Had she no excuse to offer?"
"Excuse? Yes, she did not disobey deliberately—was taken by surprise—forgot everything but that he was there."
"Well, my dear," and Rose's hand was laid affectionately on his arm, while a tender smile played about her mouth, and her sweet blue eyes looked fondly into his. "You know how it is with lovers, if you will only look back a very few years. I think there were times when you and I forgot that there was anybody in the wide world but just our two selves."
A smile, a tender caress, a few very lover-like words, and resuming his gravity and seriousness, Mr. Dinsmore went on: "But you forget the odious character of the man. If I had objected to him from mere prejudice or whim, it would have been a very different thing."