She sank into the Colonel's seat, and burst out crying with
shame, pain, and fright.
"Brute!" said the Colonel. But the thing was not to end there. Hope
strode in amongst them, with a pale cheek and a lowering brow as black as
thunder; his first words were, "Do YOU CALL YOURSELF A FATHER?" Not one
of them had ever seen Hope like that, and they all stood amazed, and
wondered what would come next.
CHAPTER XVI.
REMINISCENCES.--THE FALSE ACCUSER.--THE SECRET EXPLODED.
The secret hung on a thread. Hope, after denouncing Bartley, as we have
described, was rushing across to Mary, and what he would have said or
done in the first impulse of his wrath, who can tell?
But the quick-witted Bartley took the alarm, and literally collared him.
"My good friend," said he, "you don't know the provocation. It is the
affront to her that has made me forget myself. Affronts to myself from
the same quarter I have borne with patience. But now this insolent man
has forbidden his son to court her, and that to her face; as if we wanted
his son or him.
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