CHAPTER XV
A FATHER’S THREAT
“Ah! Mr. Wayne!” with a peculiar emphasis upon his name that somehow startled Earle. “Quite an interesting occasion. Pray, Miss Dalton, are you in the habit of entertaining your callers in this extremely—ah—amazing manner?” he demanded, with a cold sneer.
Editha’s fair face flushed with mingled shame and indignation at his coarseness, while Earle’s eyes flashed dangerously at his almost insulting manner to his betrothed.
“Papa, Mr. Wayne sails for Europe tomorrow,” Editha said, to divert his attention, and hoping thus to tide over a scene until Earle should be out of the way.
“Ah, indeed? I am happy to hear it—extremely happy to hear it,” with a satirical bow to Earle, yet with a start of surprise and a searching glance into the young man’s face; “and I presume he was taking a friendly leave of you, my dear; quite interesting—quite affecting—ah! quite.”
It is impossible to describe the malice and satire contained in his words, or the evil expression on Mr. Dalton’s face, as his eyes restlessly searched first one countenance and then the other of the lovers before him.
“No, sir!” Earle replied, rising, and pale to ghastliness with the effort he made at self-control at this insulting language and manner. “I was not taking leave of Miss Dalton, and, since I do not approve of concealments or secret engagements, I will state that she has just consented to do me the honor to become my wife at some future time.”
The young man stood proudly erect, confronting his enemy, and still holding one of Editha’s hands, as he made this bold statement.
“Do you dare stand there and tell me this?” Mr. Dalton hissed, with strange malignity.
“And why should I not dare, sir?” Earle asked, with forced respect, remembering that he was speaking to Editha’s father.
Sumner Dalton did not reply, but, turning fiercely upon Editha, demanded, in a voice of concentrated passion:
“Is what he says truth?”
“Yes, Papa,” she replied, firmly, but with downcast eyes and painfully flushed cheeks.
“You have promised to marry him?” pointing with a shaking finger at Earle, and speaking in the same tone as before.
“Yes, sir.”
“You have dared to do this thing without either my knowledge or sanction? You marry a thing like him!”
The blue eyes were downcast no longer but flashed up to meet his, with a clear and steady glance.
“Sir!” she began, and her tones, though respectful, were firm and unfaltering, “I was twenty-one years of age some time ago, and I can now, so to speak, act upon my own authority, if I choose. I am, at all events, old enough to know my own mind, and I believe I told you once before that I consider I have a right to judge and act for myself in a matter so vital to my own happiness and interests.”
She paused a moment, and her look of independence changed to one of pain, as she added, more gently:
“I would much prefer to have your consent and approbation in all that I do, but—”
“You will have my curses and hate instead,” he interrupted, nearly purple with passion that she should face him so dauntlessly.
“Please do not say that, Papa,” Editha cried, in deep distress.
“Mr. Dalton,” Earle now said gravely, yet feeling as if he could hardly keep his hands off the man for wounding her so, “may I ask what your objections are to my union with Miss Dalton?”
“It seems exceedingly strange to me that you should need to ask any respectable and honorable citizen what his objections would naturally be to your marrying his daughter,” was the intensely sarcastic reply.
Earle flushed but still controlled himself.
“I understand you, sir,” he said, proudly “but I can assure you that I am guiltless of the deed which you would impute to me. I have even now a clue to the real culprits—”
“You have?” Mr. Dalton interrupted, with a startled look.
“Yes, sir, and though I have suffered a felon’s disgrace; yet let them once be brought to justice, and my name will be cleared from every breath of taint.”
“Your name will be cleared from every breath of taint!” Mr. Dalton repeated, with an emphasis and look that made Earle start violently and regard him with perplexity.
Then he answered, with firm assurance:
“Yes, sir; I think I can safely promise that in six months from this time, I shall be able to convince you that I am as honorable and respectable a man as you yourself claim to be, and shall be able to offer Miss Dalton a position in life that even you will be proud to accept for her.”
Mr. Dalton now started as if stung at these last words, and his face would have been a study for a painter.
He had grown very pale while Earle was speaking, and his countenance wore a half-frightened, perplexed expression, while his eyes were fixed upon the young man as if fascinated.
“How can you do this thing? What do you mean?” he at last demanded, in a wondering tone.
“Pardon me if I say I cannot explain just now,” he answered, with a slight smile, and a quick, fond glance at Editha, as if she would be the first one to be told of any good that came to him; “but, providing that I can thus convince you of my honesty and respectability, will you then consent to my union with Editha?”
“No!” burst from the irate man, who seemed to recover himself at this question.
Earle looked surprised, and as if utterly unable to comprehend the man’s strange demeanor, and his peculiar animosity toward him.
“Have you any other objection to my making Miss Dalton my wife?” he asked, in his straightforward way.
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“May I ask what it is?”
“You may ask, but it does not follow that I shall tell you. Suffice it to say that you shall never marry Editha Dalton.”
Earle Wayne smiled calmly.
“Pardon me, but that is a question which Editha alone can decide,” he replied, respectfully but confidently.
“Aha! do you think so?” sneered Mr. Dalton. Then turning to Editha, with a malicious smile, he demanded: “And what is your opinion about the matter, miss?”
“I wish we could be at peace, Papa. Oh, why cannot you be reasonable, and let me be happy?” she exclaimed, with gathering tears and a bitter pain at the rupture she foresaw.
“Speak! What do you think of your lover’s statement?” reiterated Mr. Dalton, harshly.
“If I must speak—then—I must,” she began, with quiet dignity, “although I dislike to cause you either anger or sorrow. I think this is a matter which I alone can decide, and—I have decided.”
“How have you decided?” thundered Mr. Dalton, striding toward her.
“I have decided that if we both do live, I shall be Earle Wayne’s wife,” she said, with a quiet firmness that left no room for doubt.
A proud, glad light leaped into Earle’s face at these brave words, though he would cheerfully have shielded her at almost any cost from this angry scene with her father.
“Aha! you have, have you?” he returned, in tones that made her shrink from him and move nearer Earle, as if for protection from some impending ill, though she knew not what.
Mr. Dalton marked the gesture, and it enraged him still more.
“I suppose you think you love this fine young gentleman very much,” he said, with a strange smile on his lips.
“Yes, sir, I do,” she answered, unflinchingly.
“And you, sir?” turning fiercely upon Earle.
He would not have deigned to reply to the trivial question had he not deemed it best for Editha’s sake to temporize with him.
“I have loved Miss Dalton since the day Mr. Forrester introduced me to her, more than six years ago,” he answered, quietly.
“I can crush you both with a breath—you shall never marry each other,” Sumner Dalton whispered, hoarsely.
Earle thought this but an idle threat, uttered in the heat of passion, and paid no particular heed to it; but he longed to put an end to the disgraceful scene.
“Mr. Dalton,” he said, speaking very calmly, “why will you not listen to reason? Do you not see that there is nothing to be gained by so much passionate opposition? Editha and I are both of age, capable of acting for ourselves, and we both also believe that there can be no impediment to our union except, perhaps, the fancied one of a social unfitness; and for that we do not propose to sacrifice the happiness of our lives. I do not desire to be at enmity with you, and I cannot understand why you should be so violent in your dislike of me, since I am not conscious of ever having done you any injury. I do not mean to be unreasonable in my resistance to your will and authority, but your own good sense will tell you that no man would lightly yield the woman he loved as his own life; and, while I believe that every child should obey the divine injunction to ‘honor one’s parents,’ yet there is a limit beyond which this will not apply. Now, if you have any good and sufficient reason for what you assert, I desire to hear it.”
Mr. Dalton’s eyes had been fixed upon him while he was speaking in that same strange gaze that he had noticed once before, and now, as then, he had grown deadly pale.
“I have a good and sufficient reason, and I would see her on the rack before I would allow you to marry her,” he said, bending towards him and speaking with a vindictiveness that sent a cold chill creeping over Earle’s flesh.
“Oh, Papa, what can you mean?” exclaimed Editha, with a shudder.
“I cannot understand this fierce hatred which you seem to entertain for me,” began Earle, regarding him thoughtfully.
“You have hit the nail on the head at last. I hate you—I hate you—and I have cause to hate you,” Sumner Dalton answered, shaking like a leaf in the wind, as he uttered the fearful words.
“I repeat, I cannot understand it,” Earle said, wonderingly.
“I suppose, practically speaking, you do not even know the meaning of the word,” sneered Mr. Dalton.
“I hope I do not, sir. We are commanded not to hate, but rather to love our enemies, and to do good to those who injure us.”
“I suppose you put that in practice since you preach it?”
“I desire to practice it most certainly,” was the grave response.
“How would it be if you could find those real thieves, for whom you pretend you have suffered disgrace?” was the searching query.
Earle’s face was very noble and earnest as he returned, thoughtfully:
“Beyond proving my own innocence, and justifying myself in the eyes of the world, I believe I can honestly say I wish them no ill.”
“And you would revenge yourself by making them serve a double sentence if you could?” demanded Mr. Dalton, skeptically.
“It might be necessary for the good of the public that they should be put where they could do no more injury, but it would afford me no personal gratification, I can assure you,” Earle answered, with a sigh, feeling that it would be but sad pleasure to be the cause of another’s serving out a term of weary years in State prison, as he had done.
Then, with a pitying glance at his enemy, he said, even more gently than he had yet spoken:
“Mr. Dalton, did you never read what Milton says of that ignoble sentiment of which you speak?
‘Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.’”
Mr. Dalton laughed, mockingly.
“You should have continued your very apt quotation, for, if I remember rightly, a few lines below read like this:
‘I reck not, so it light well aimed—
· · · · ·
Spite then with spite is best repaid.’
I must confess that your creed is beyond both my comprehension and inclination; and, mark my words, you yourself will yet prove it fallacious by practical illustration.”
“I trust not, sir; the world would be a sad place in which to live if such passion ran riot in the hearts of all men,” Earle said, sadly.
“Let an enemy fall into your hands and see; let someone do you a deadly injury—let him crush your hopes, and every prospect for the fulfillment of your ambitious desires, and bar you forever from the one prize you covet most on earth, and then see if you will preach about love to your enemies,” Mr. Dalton said, with a fierceness that was absolutely startling, and Earle wondered more and more what possible connection all this could have with his hatred of him.
He was not conscious of having crushed any of his hopes, nor of hindering the fulfillment of any ambitious desires, nor of barring him from any coveted prize, although he thought Mr. Dalton was guilty of all this in regard to himself.
“Are you not doing that very thing now? Are you not seeking to wrest from me the dearest object which earth holds for me?” he asked, gently, and really pitying one who was so at the mercy of his fierce passions.
“Yes; and aren’t you longing to grapple me with those powerful hands of yours and crush me for it?” he laughed in return.
“Honestly, no, Mr. Dalton,” Earle exclaimed, with solemn earnestness; “I would not avail myself of the slightest advantage to do you an injury. You suffer more from the exercise of your own vindictiveness than I ever can from its effects.”
“And yet you are determined to marry her,” with a gesture toward Editha, who now sat with bowed head weeping, “in spite of all my threats?”
“Not ‘in spite of your threats,’ Mr. Dalton, for they do not move me in the least; but because our love and our happiness are both too sacred to be sacrificed to the malice of anyone,” Earle replied, with dignity.
“You will not heed me—you are determined to marry Editha?” he demanded, scowling darkly.
“If Miss Dalton consents to be my wife, I shall most certainly make her so.”
“And you will not be warned?”
“What possible cause, sir, can you have for this fierce opposition and resentment? Will you tell me?” Earle demanded, nearly wearied out with this controversy.
“No; that is my secret—I shall not tell it to you. I shall keep it to crush you both with; and crush you it will if you attempt to thwart me,” he answered, sternly.
Earle bent his head in deep thought for a moment, then, seeking Mr. Dalton’s eye with a searching look, he said:
“Mr. Dalton, tell me one thing; it is not possible—you do not think that it is Editha’s money I am seeking?”
“It would not be so strange a thing if you were; Editha has a pretty penny of her own; but let me tell you not a dollar of it will you get more than you have already got,” he snapped, savagely, and with a scowl at his daughter, as he thus referred to her defiance of him regarding Richard Forrester’s legacy to Earle.
“I have never touched that money, sir, nor do I ever intend to do so; and it seems to me as if that fact alone should convince you that I am no fortune-hunter,” the young man said, flushing with disgust that such a motive should be imputed to him.
“That is a very pretty theory, and doubtless wins that silly girl’s warmest admiration, as being so disinterested and noble in you; when, if you should be so fortunate as to succeed in your designs to marry her, you would have the handling of the whole,” was the sarcastic rejoinder.
“Sir, if you were any other than Editha’s father you would be made to repent of and apologize for those words.”
Earle’s eyes emitted glances of fire, and his clenched hands and heaving chest showed how hard it was for him to refrain from bestowing the chastisement the evil-minded man so richly merited.
A sardonic grin for a moment distorted Mr. Dalton’s features at these words; but, turning to Editha, who at that last insult to her lover had risen and now stood at his side, white and quivering with pain and indignation, he said, in low, concentrated tones:
“Remember, if you dare to defy me in this matter as you did in the other, my secret and my hate shall crush you both.”
Then, without another word, he turned and left the room.
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