' Your father can bear me out in that, for
I said the same to him. And finding that I had his approval, I was
satisfied to bide my time, and wait till you came round to the same way
of thinking. Your father tells me yesterday afternoon, and again this
afternoon, that you have come round to that way of feeling. I hope he
hasn't deceived me, Miss Carley."
This was a very long speech for Stephen Whitelaw. It was uttered in
little gasps or snatches of speech, the speaker stopping at the end of
every sentence to take breath.
Ellen Carley sat on that side of the comfortable round table most remote
from Mr. Whitelaw, deadly pale, with her hands clasped before her. Once
she lifted her eyes with a piteous look to her father's face; but he was
smoking his pipe solemnly, with his gaze fixed upon the blazing logs in
the grate, and contrived not to see that mute despairing appeal. He had
not looked at his daughter once since Stephen Whitelaw's arrival, nor had
he made any attempt to prepare her for this visit, this rapid
consummation of the sacrifice.
"Come, Miss Carley," said the former rather impatiently, after there had
been a dead silence of some minutes, "I want to get an answer direct from
your own lips. Your father hasn't been deceiving me, has he?"
"No," Ellen said in a low voice, almost as if the reply were dragged from
her by some physical torture.
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