CHAPTER XI.

PROTEST AND APPEAL.

"Father, father, do not ask me to meet him; from the first it was an evil engagement, broken, or should have been. Why do you wish to take it up again?"

Ruth Jessup, who made this appeal, stood in front of her father, who had just told her that it had been arranged that a speedy marriage should terminate the engagement with Richard Storms--an engagement entered into when she was scarcely more than a child. "It was high time the thing was settled," he said, "while neighbor Storms was pleased with his son and ready to settle a handsome property on him. That, with the money that would be hers in time, might enable them to move among the best in the neighborhood."

The girl listened to all this with a wild look in her face, half-rebellion, half-terror. "No," she said, straining her hands together in a passionate clasp, "you must not ask me to take him. I could not love him--the very idea is dreadful."

"But, girl, you are engaged to him. My word is given--my word is given."

"But only on condition, father--only on the condition of his amendment."

"Well, the young man has come through his probation like a gentleman, as he has a right to be. He just rode by here on his bay horse, as fine a looking young fellow as one need want for a son-in-law, lifting his hat like a lord as he passed me. We may expect him here to-night."

"But, father, I will not see him. I--I cannot."

The girl was pale and anxious; her eyes were eloquent with pleading, her mouth tremulous.

"And why not?"

"Only I cannot--I never can like him again."

The kind-hearted gardener sat down in the nearest chair, and took those two clasped hands in his, looking gravely but very kindly into the girl's troubled face.

"Daughter," he said, "workingmen don't pretend to fine sentiments, but we have our own ideas of honor, and a man's word once given in good faith must be kept, let the cost be what it may. I have given my word to neighbor Storms. It must be honestly redeemed. You made no objection then."

"But, oh, father, I was so young! How could I know what an awful thing I was doing?"

"If it was a mistake, who but ourselves should suffer for it, Ruth?"

"But he went astray--his company was of the worst."

"That is all changed and atoned for."

The girl shook her head.

"Oh, father, he was never a good son."

"That, too, is changed; no man was ever more proud of a son than neighbor Storms is now of this young man."

The girl turned away and began to cry.

"I thought you had given this up--that I should never again be tormented with it! He seemed willing to leave me alone; but now only three weeks after my godmother has promised to give me her money he comes back again! Oh, I wish she had promised it to some one else!"

"That is the very reason why we should fulfil our obligations to the letter, Ruth. It must not be said that a child of mine drew back from her father's plighted word because her dower promised to be more than double anything he had counted on when it was given."

The girl's eyes flashed and her lips curved.

"If it has made him more eager, I may well consider it," she said; "and I think it has."

"Shame on you, daughter! Such suspicions are unbecoming!"

"I cannot help them, father; the very thought of this man is hateful to me."

"Well, well," said the father, soothingly, but not the less firm in his purpose; "the young man must plead his own cause. I have no fear that he will find my child unreasonable."

The harassed young creature grew desperate; she followed her father to the door of an inner room.

"Father, come back, come back! It is cruel to put me off so!"

Ruth drew her father into the room again, and renewed her protest with the passionate entreaties that had been so ineffectual. In her desperation she spoke with unusual energy, while now and then her sentences were broken up with sobs.

"Oh, father, do not insist--do not force this marriage upon me! It will be my death, my destruction! I detest the man!"

Jessup turned away from her. That sweet appealing face made his heart ache.

Ruth saw this look of relenting, and would not give up her cause. She approached close to her father, and, clinging to his arm, implored him, with bitter sobs, to believe her when she said that this marriage would be worse than death to her.

"Hush, girl!" said the old man. "Hush, now, or I may believe some hints that the young man has thrown out of another person. No girl in these parts would refuse a young fellow so well-to-do and so good-looking, if she hadn't got some one else in her mind."

This speech was rendered more significant by a look of suspicion, which brought a rush of scarlet into the daughter's face.

"Oh, father, you are cruel!" cried the tortured young creature, struggling, as it were, for her life.

The old man turned away from this pathetic pleading; nothing but a stern sense of honor, which is so strong in some men of his class, could have nerved him against the anguish of this appeal.

"We have given our word, child; we have given our word," he said. "Neither you nor your father can go beyond that."

The gardener's voice faltered and he broke away from the trembling hands with which Ruth in her desperation sought to hold him. For the first time in his life he had found strength to resist her entreaties.