“I thought he didn’t tell you, and I suppose he did not mention that poor Mr. Hope, and Mr. Monkton too, begged and implored him not to go to the works to-day,—yes, almost on their bended knees; and he paid not the slightest attention to their wishes—and they his employers! If for no other reason he——”
“But tell me what he did? How did he defy the men?”
“Why do you not allow me to finish what I am saying? Why are you so impatient?”
“Because he is my father. Is that not reason enough?”
“Yes, my poor child, yes,” murmured Mrs. Sartwell, in mournful cadence, “that is reason enough. Like father, like daughter. It is perhaps too much for me to expect patience from you, when he has so little.”
“That is not my meaning, but never mind. Please tell me if he was in danger.”
“We are all of us in danger every moment of our lives, and saved from it by merciful interposition and not by any virtue of our puny efforts. How often, how often have I made my poor endeavour to impress this great truth on your father’s mind, only to be met with scorn and scoffing, as if scorn and scoffing would avail on the Last——Why are you acting so, Edna? You pace up and down the room in a way that is—I regret to say it—most unladylike. You shouldn’t spring from your chair in that abrupt manner. I say that scoffing will not avail. Surely I have a right to make the statement in my own house! When I said to your father this very morning that he should not boast in his own strength, which is but fleeting, but should put his trust in a higher power, he answered that he did—the police were on the ground. What is that but scoffing? He knew I was not referring to the police.”
Edna had left the room before her step-mother completed the last sentence, and when the much-tried woman, arising with a weary sigh, followed the girl into the hall, she found herself confronted with another domestic tribulation. Edna had her hat on, and was clasping her cloak.
“Where are you going?” asked her amazed stepmother.
“To London.”