He looked about the room; he would not look at her. She stood there unable to speak, and with her face grown wild and pale.
“Ah, it wass raining hard all the last night, and there wass a good deal of water came into the carriage; and it is a ferry hard bed you will make of a third-class carriage. Ay, it wass so. And this a new house you will hef, Sheila?”
She had been coming nearer to him, with her face down and the speechless lips trembling. And then suddenly, with a strange sob, she threw herself into his arms and hid her head, and burst into a wild fit of crying.
“Sheila,” he said, “what ails you? What iss all the matter?”
Mairi had covertly got out of the room.
“Oh, papa, I have left him,” the girl cried.
“Ay,” said her father, quite cheerfully—“oh, ay, I thought there was some little thing wrong when your letter wass come to us the other day. But it is no use making a great deal of trouble about it, Sheila, for it is easy to have all those things put right again—oh, yes, ferry easy. And you have left your own home, Sheila? And where is Mr. Lavender?”
“Oh, papa,” she cried, “you must not try to see him. You must promise not to go to see him. I should have told you everything when I wrote, but I thought you would come up and blame it all on him, and I think it is I who am to blame.”
“But I do not want to blame any one,” said her father. “You must not make so much of these things, Sheila. It is a pity—yes, it is a ferry great pity—your husband and you will hef a quarrel; but it iss no uncommon thing for these troubles to happen, and I am coming to you this morning, not to make any more trouble, but to see if it cannot be put right again. And I will not blame anyone; but if I wass to see Mr. Lavender—”
A bitter anger had filled his heart from the moment he had learned how matters stood, and yet he was talking in such a bland, matter-of-fact, almost cheerful fashion that his own daughter was imposed upon, and began to grow comforted. The mere fact that her father now knew all her troubles, and was not disposed to take a very gloomy view of them, was of itself a great relief to her. And she was greatly pleased, too, to hear her father speak in the same light and even friendly fashion of her husband. She had dreaded the possible results of her writing home and relating what had occurred. She knew the powerful passion of which this lonely old man was capable, and if he had come suddenly down South with a wild desire to revenge the wrongs of his daughter, what might not have happened?