'How should things go well with me when my own child opposes my interest?' he had answered, gloomily. 'I have wasted time and substance, I have fooled myself in the eyes of other men, and now I must hide my head in this obscurity which has grown so hateful to me, and it is all your fault, Ethel.'
'Papa, listen to me,' she pleaded. 'Ambition is not everything; why have you set your heart on this thing? It is embittering your life and mine. Other men have been disappointed, and it has not gone so very hard with them. Why will you not let yourself be comforted?'
'There is no comfort for me,' he had replied, and his face had been very old and haggard as he spoke. It were far better that she had not spoken; her words, few and gentle as they were, only added to the fuel of his discontent; he had meant to shut himself up in his sullenness, and make no sign; but she had intercepted his retreat, and brought down the vials on her devoted head.
Could she ever forget the angry storm that followed? Surely he must have been beside himself to have spoken such words! How was it that she had been accused of jilting Mr. Cathcart, of refusing his renewed overtures, merely from obstinacy, and the desire of opposition; that she should hear herself branded as her father's worst enemy?
'You and your pride have done for me!' he had said, lashing himself up to fresh fury with the remembrance of past mortification. 'You have taken from me all that would make life desirable. You have been a bad daughter to me, Ethel. You have spoiled the work of a lifetime.'
'Papa, papa, I have only acted rightly. How could I have done this evil thing, even for your sake?' she had cried, but he had not listened to her.
'You have jilted the man you fancied out of pride, and now the mischief will lie on your own head,' he had answered, angrily, and then he had turned to leave the room.
Half an hour afterwards the heavy thud of a fall had been heard, and the man had come to her with a white face to summon her to her father's bedside.
She knew then what had come upon them. At the first sight of that motionless figure, speechless, inert, struck down with unerring force, in the very prime and strength of life, she knew how it would be with them both.
'Oh, my dear, my dear, forgive me,' she had cried, falling on her knees beside the bed, and raining tears over the rigid hands; and yet what was there to forgive? Was it not rather she who had been sinned against? What words were those the paralysed tongue refused to speak? What was the meaning of those awful questioning eyes that rested on her day and night, when partial consciousness returned? Could it be that he would have entreated her forgiveness?