Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/129

124 before he could hope to bring Sarah to his own home, there must be some certain prospect for the brother whom she conceived herself bound to watch over, not only because she loved him, but because she had kissed the promise to do so upon her mother's dying lips.

The room was still and light, its atmosphere such as befitted the handsome, thoughtful, middle-aged man, sitting so calmly smoking amid its manifold luxuries. Suddenly the door was quickly opened, and Eleanor, in a passion of weeping, flung herself at his feet, and laying her hand on his breast, sobbed out, "Oh, father! father! father! Anthony—struck me!"

Then Jonathan dashed his pipe upon the hearth, and shattered it to pieces. He raised the weeping woman in his arms, and he whispered fiercely below his breath, "I'll horsewhip him for it!"

The natural man, and the unpolished, uneducated man, asserted himself at this crisis, and would not listen to reason. "Go thee back to thy old rooms," he said, sternly; "thou shalt niver enter Aske Hall again. If that is t' way fine gentlemen treat a woman like thee, why,