Mr. Graham was provoked beyond endurance, and to the twice repeated question, he at length replied, “God knows I’ve far more reason to love her than I have you.” At the same moment he left the room, in time to avoid a sight of the collapsed state into which his horrified wife who did not expect such an answer, had fallen.
“Can I tell her? oh, dare I tell her?” he thought, as he wiped the drops of perspiration from his brow, and groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. Terribly was he expiating his fault, but at last he grew calmer, and cowardice (for he was cowardly, else he had never been what he was) whispered, “Wait yet awhile. Anything for domestic peace.”
So the secret was buried still deeper in his bosom, he never thinking how his conduct would in the end injure the young girl, dearer to him far than his own life. While he sat thus alone in his room, and as his wife lay upon her sofa, Durward entered the parlor and began good-humoredly to rally his mother upon her wobegone face, asking what was the matter now.
“Oh, you poor boy, you,” she sobbed, “you’ll soon have no mother to go to, but you must attribute my death wholly to your stepfather, who alone will be to blame for making you an orphan!”
Durward knew his mother well, and he thought he knew his father too, and while he respected him, he blamed her for the unreasonable whims of which he was becoming weary. He knew there had been a jar in the morning, but he had supposed that settled, and now, when he found his mother ten times worse than ever, he felt half vexed, and said, “Do be a woman mother, and not give way to such fancies. I really wonder father shows as much patience with you as he does, for you make our home very unpleasant; and really,” he continued, in a laughing tone, “if this goes on much longer, I shall, in self-defense, get me a wife and home of my own.”
“And if report is true, that wife will be ’Lena Rivers,” said Mrs. Graham, in order to try him.
“Very likely—I can’t tell what may be,” was his answer; to which Mrs. Graham replied, “that it would be extremely pleasant to marry a bride with whom one’s father was in love.”
“How ridiculous!” Durward exclaimed. “As though my father cared aught for ’Lena, except to admire her for her beauty and agreeable manners.”
“But, he’s acknowledged it. He’s just told me, ‘God knew he loved her better than he did me.’ What do you think of that?”
“Did Mr. Graham say that?” asked Durward, looking his mother directly in her face.