"How regret it, papa?" she said, without looking up.
"Why, good God!" he said angrily; "I should think the reasons for regret are plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and could have given you the finest position in the county, for the most nonsensical reasons in the world—reasons that by now, I am certain, you are ashamed of."
He saw her wince, and enjoyed his prerogative of weakness. In his normal health he would never have dared so to speak to her. But of late, during long fits of feverish brooding—intensified by her return home—he had vowed to himself to speak his mind.
"Aren't you ashamed of them?" he repeated, as she was silent.
She looked up.
"I am not ashamed of anything I did to save Hurd, if that is what you mean, papa."
Mr. Boyce's anger grew.
"Of course you know what everybody said?"
She stooped over her work again, and did not reply.
"It's no good being sullen over it," he said in exasperation; "I'm your father, and I'm dying. I have a right to question you. It's my duty to see something settled, if I can, before I go. Is it true that all the time you were attacking Raeburn about politics and the reprieve, and what not, you were really behaving as you never ought to have behaved, with Harry Wharton?"