“Louie,” he began, in a choking voice. “You must not cast me off like this. It is very sudden, and you don’t give me time to think. I have been a coward, I’ll admit, but try me again. There is some manhood in me, although I admit I have not shown much since your father’s failure. I was a cad not to join you to-night, but upon my soul I believe you did better alone. Try me again, I will tell father everything. I will, upon my word, and every one shall know you are to be my wife. Try me, Louie.”
Louie shook her head. With every step she had taken she had felt herself growing lighter and happier, with a sense of freedom, and Herbert’s persuasive words did not move her.
“You can’t wait ten or twenty years for me, and you cannot marry the daughter of a man disgraced as my father is. In a short time you will see it as I do. You couldn’t speak for father to-night, and you surely could not identify yourself with him as his son-in-law if the worst should happen, although in your excitement you think you can.”
This fling at his cowardice stung Herbert to the quick, making him redouble his arguments why she should reconsider. It was of no use. Louie was resolved, and when at last he left the house, the ring was in his pocket, and there was an ache in his heart such as he had never known before, and the world looked very dark.
When he reached home he found his father up and evidently waiting for him.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “Not to see the Grey girl again on such a night as this?”
“Yes, I have been to see the Grey girl,” Herbert answered, doggedly, and in a moment his father grew angry.
“Haven’t I told you to quit it?” he asked.
There was a moment’s silence, a shutting of his teeth together, and then Herbert began:
“I have quit it, or she has. She has thrown me over—given me my congé. I hope you are satisfied.”