"Hold your tongue, Mabyn," her father said. "You'd drive a windmill with your talk."
"But what she says is true enough," Trelyon said. "Roscorla has a claim on her: this was my only chance, and I took it. Now look here, Mr. Rosewarne: you've a right to be angry and all that—perhaps you are—but what good will it do you to see Wenna left to marry Roscorla?"
"What good will it do me?" said George Rosewarne pettishly. "I don't care which of you she marries."
"Then you'll let us go on, dada?" Mabyn cried. "Will you come with us? Oh, do come with us! We're only going to Plymouth."
Even the angry father could not withstand the absurdity of this appeal. He burst into a roar of ill-tempered laughter. "I like that!" he cried. "Asking a man to help his daughter to run away from his own house! It's my impression, my young mistress, that you're at the bottom of all this nonsense. Come, come! enough of it, Trelyon: be a sensible fellow, and turn your horses round. Why, the notion of going to Plymouth at this time o' night!"
Trelyon looked to his companion. She put her hand on his arm, and said, in a trembling whisper, "Oh yes: pray let us go back."
"You know what you are going to, then?" said he coldly.
She trembled still more.
"Come, come," said her father: "you mustn't stop here all night. You may thank me for preventing your becoming the talk of the whole country."