"Not just that, perhaps, but she has gone, and I'm not looking for her back for a while." The mother's voice was dry, and she talked in the restraint of subdued emotion.
"And you knew she was going?"
"I knew before she left. I didn't—"
"No. You didn't think it was worth mentioning to me. Just a matter we could talk about any time. I suppose you thought I wouldn't care."
"Well, you didn't seem to care very much, John. You gave your orders and went to bed. Beulah could obey or get out. You might have known she had enough of your own spirit to soon settle that question. She settled it just as you would have settled it if you had been in her place."
"Oh, of course, I'm to blame for the whole thing," said Harris, and his throat was thick as he spoke. His daughter was very dear to him, and that she would leave home had never entered his head. Why should she? Wasn't he a good father? Didn't he give her a good home, with plenty to eat and wear, and a little money to spend from time to time, and no questions asked? What more could a man do than that? Already his heart was crying out for his daughter—the cry of broken strings which never knew their strength until they broke. But to show any emotion, or to express regret for anything he had done, meant surrender, and if there was one thing John Harris could not do it was surrender. Not that he felt he had done anything wrong, or even imprudent; he was sincerely sorry for what had happened, but not for his part in it. And, lest gentleness should be mistaken for weakness, he clothed his real feelings in sharp words to his wife.
"Of course, you must take her part. I suppose you advised her to go. It was an awful thing for me to tell her she must do her work, but a small thing for her to run away. Well, I hope she likes it. If she thinks I'm going to hitch up a buggy and go chasing around the neighbourhood, begging her to come back, she's mistaken. She's gone of her own free will, and she can come back of the same, or not at all."
"I wouldn't look for her back too soon," remarked Allan. "Looks to me as though this thing had all been figured out ahead. Jim went yesterday morning; Beulah goes last night. Just a chance if they ain't married by this time."
"So that's it, is it?" exclaimed Harris, jumping up from his untouched breakfast. There was a fierce light in his eye and a determination in his face that boded ill to any who opposed him. He seized his wife roughly by the shoulder. "And you were a party to this, were you? You—you wouldn't even stop at that? Well, I'll stop it. I'll stop him, if I do it with a bullet. I'll show him whether any—any—hired man—can cross me in a matter of my own family."
His wife had risen, and was clinging to his wrists, half for protection, half in suppliance. "Now, John," she pleaded, "don't be rash. You don't know that Beulah's gone with Jim, and you haven't a word of proof of it."