“Is it prudent, Lambert, needlessly to offend Colonel Brereton?” deprecated Mrs. Meredith.
“Ay. Let him give me up to the authorities,” sneered the husband. “’T will be all of a piece with his other doings.”
“To such an imputation I refuse to make denial,” said Brereton, proudly; “but be warned, sir, by the trials for treason now going on in Jersey and Pennsylvania, what fate awaits you if you are captured. Even I could not save you, I fear, after your taking office from the king, if you were caught thus.”
“Wait till ye ’re asked, and we’ll see who first needs help, ye or I,” retorted the squire. “Meantime understand that I’ll not have ye at Greenwood, save as a bond-servant. My girl is promised to a man of property and respectability, and is to be had by no servant who dare not so much as let the world know who were his father and mother!”
It was now too dark to distinguish anything, so the others did not see how Brereton’s face whitened. For a moment he was silent, then in a voice hoarsely strident he said: “No man but you could speak thus and not pay the full penalty of his words; and since you take so low an advantage of my position, further relations with you are impossible. Janice, choose between me and your father, for there can be but the one of us in your future life.”
“Oh, Jack,” cried the girl, imploringly, “you cannot—if you love me, you cannot ask such a thing of me.”
“He puts it well,” asserted Mr. Meredith. “Dost intend to obey me, child, or—”
“Oh, dadda,” chokingly moaned Janice, “you know I have promised obedience, and never will I be undutiful, but—”
The aide, not giving her time to complete the sentence, vehemently exclaimed, “’T is as I might have expected! Lover good enough I am when you are in peril or want, but once saved, I am quickly taught that your favours are granted from policy and not from love.”
“’T is not so,” denied the girl, indignantly yet miserably; “I—”