"Margaret——"
"This appeared to help him, but I saw that Louise did not believe me. However, I commanded her to come home and bring her husband with her. But she shook her head and declared that she would never again enter your house until she could in some way discharge the debt of gratitude with which you reproached her, which she says you flaunted in her face at a time when she was greatly distressed."
"What! I don't exactly understand."
"Yes, you do, dear. You reminded her that you had saved her life, and told her that you based your plea for obedience upon your own gallantry."
"Oh, that was a piece of mere nonsense, a theatrical trick. Of course I don't deserve any credit for having saved the life of my own child."
"It may have been a theatrical trick with you, but it wasn't with her. She keenly feels your reproach."
"Confound it, you are both making a monster of me."
"No, dear, that is not our design."
"Our design! Have you too, set yourself against me? Let me go to old Gideon. He's the only friend I've got."
"John, you mustn't say that. And why, at this time, should you refer to that old sinner? But let me go on. While I was there the doctor came, and shortly afterward we heard a heavy tread on the flapping boards of the passageway that divides the two sections of the old house."