Page:Our Grandfather by Vítězslav Hálek (1887).pdf/44

 Kubista loved his daughter above measure. He did not permit Novak to say any more in that daughter’s presence, but at the same time, for the sake of her mother, he wished to test whether the matter had any substantial foundation. He took Novak by the hand, went out with him into the parlour, and then cross-questioned him at considerable length.

The end of the interview was this, that Kubista told Novak not to come to his house again, and as to the visit of that youth to which Novak had pledged himself—that nothing more must be said about it.

Novak excused himself with many fresh bows and obsequious speeches, without retracting a word of what he had said. He begged them to forgive him for having come. “My intention,” says he, “never was to disturb your domestic tranquillity—indeed, I assure you I came with the purest intentions.” And when he had said everything that he meant to say he departed.

But now they had to comfort Betuska. She reproached her parents for confiding their anxiety about her to any one, though it broke her heart, and for having more regard to strangers than to their own daughter. The poor girl was only quieted when her parents assured her that they did not believe anything that Novak had said in their house.

Betuska met Uncle John about two days after this, in the evening, at the fatal boundary stone of grandfather’s and Kubista’s fields.

Uncle John noticed at once that she had been crying, and asked her the reason of it.

Instead of answering Betuska burst out into a fresh fit of crying, and tears, hot as the anguish in her heart