Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/136

 meet him by strength greater than his own; so he threatened her instead.

"I can forgive your imbecility and madness. God helping me, I can forgive my child's child even what she has said to me this day. But disobey me again, and I shall never forgive you. Obedience in my own house and from my children dependent upon me, I shall have. So step over the threshold of that door in disobedience to me, and you shall never come into my house again. Now go; go to your room and go to your knees, and later, when you are yourself, I shall send for you."

The very vibration of his rasping, powerful voice seemed to shake her; his words took impact like blows of his finger which had struck her face. Even if she were cool, she could not at one moment comprehend consequences of the decision which then and there she had to make; she knew that already she had made it, so she gazed only an instant longer at her grandfather before looking up at the friend at her side.

"I am ready to go with you," she said.