"Hush!" said Warrington, "they can hear you from the next room."
"Hear; let them hear!" Pen cried out, only so much the louder. "Those may overhear my talk who intercept my letters. I say this poor girl has been shamefully used, and I will do my best to right her; I will."
The door of the neighboring room opened and Laura came forth with pale and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamed pride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she said; "it is a pity that you should speak so loud as to disturb her."
"It is a pity that I should have been obliged to speak at all," Pen answered. "And I have more to say before I have done."
"I should think what you have to say will hardly be fit for me to hear," Laura said, haughtily.
"You are welcome to hear it or not, as you like," said Mr. Pen. "I shall go in now and speak to my mother."
Laura came rapidly forward, so that she should not be overheard by her friend within. "Not now, sir," she said to Pen. "You may kill her if you do. Your conduct has gone far enough to make her wretched."
"What conduct?" cried out Pen, in a fury. "Who dares impugn it? Who dares meddle with me? Is it you who are the instigator of this persecution?"
"I said before it was a subject of which it did not become me to hear or to speak," Laura said. "But as for mamma, if she had acted otherwise than she did with regard to—to the person about whom you seem to take such an interest, it would have been I that must have quitted your house, and not that—that person."
"By heavens! this is too much," Pen cried out, with a violent execration.