This drove Bartley wild
altogether; he rushed at the Colonel, and shook his fist in his face.
"You stand there sneering at my humiliation; now see the example I can
make." Then he was down upon Mary in a moment, and literally yelled at
her in his fury. "Go to your paramour, girl; go where you will. You never
enter my door again." And he turned his back furiously upon her.
This terrible denunciation overpowered poor Mary's resolution; she clung
to him in terror. "Oh, mercy, mercy, papa! I'll explain to _you_, have
pity on your child!"
Bartley flung her so roughly from him that she nearly fell, "You are my
child no more."
But at that moment in strode William Hope, looking seven feet high, and
his eyes blazing. "Liar and hypocrite," he roared, "_she never was your
child_!" Then, changing to a tone of exquisite love, and stretching out
both his hands to Mary, "SHE IS MINE!"
Mary, being now between the two men, turned swiftly first to one, then to
the other, and with woman's infallible eye knew her own flesh and blood
in that half-moment.
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