He put one arm languidly round her. "I used to read of Orestes and the
Furies at Eton when I was a boy, and I thought it was all a heathen
fiction. Poor little motherless girl!" said he, laying his other hand on
her head, with the caressing gesture he had been accustomed to use when
she had been a little child. "Did you love him so very dearly, Nelly?"
he whispered, his cheek against her: "for somehow of late he has not
seemed to me good enough for thee. He has got an inkling that something
has gone wrong, and he was very inquisitive--I may say he questioned me
in a relentless kind of way."
"Oh, papa, it was my doing, I'm afraid. I said something long ago about
possible disgrace."
He pushed her away; he stood up, and looked at her with the eyes dilated,
half in fear, half in fierceness, of an animal at bay; he did not heed
that his abrupt movement had almost thrown her prostrate on the ground.
"You, Ellinor! You--you--"
"Oh, darling father, listen!" said she, creeping to his knees, and
clasping them with her hands. "I said it, as if it were a possible case,
of some one else--last August--but he immediately applied it, and asked
me if it was over me the disgrace, or shame--I forget the words we
used--hung; and what could I say?"
"Anything--anything to put him off the scent. God help me, I am a lost
man, betrayed by my child!"
Ellinor let go his knees, and covered her face.
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