Hearing loud words proceeding from the doctor’s study, and guessing what might be the cause, Susie, pale and trembling, crept down the stairs, which ended just at the doctor’s door. She heard distinctly these words from the lips that were so dear to her, and unable to move hand or foot, she sank down on the stairs. Poor girl! She had obeyed the instinct of her tender heart, meaning, if Dan was suffering under his father’s anger for her sake, to go and shield him, woman-like, and take all the blame on herself. Upon this noble impulse Dan’s words had fallen like cold steel upon her warm heart. Her wonder was overwhelming when she heard the doctor reply in a clear, distinct tone: “Great God! that from a son of mine! Cowardly, ignobly, seeking to cover your baseness by degrading a weak young girl, whose only fault is loving you a thousand times more than you deserve. You have sought her and courted her favor ever since she was thirteen years old. Even as long ago as that, you promised her marriage, and tattooed yourself with her name as a seal of the promise. She never doubted your honesty for years, and when, through her devotion for you and the Devil knows not what arts exercised on your part, she sacrifices everything a woman can sacrifice, you would basely desert her. I tell you it is the most damnable act a man can perpetrate. Brute force and ignorance have oppressed woman in all history, making her a slave to petty cares, denying her the political and social equality that belongs by right to human beings, and making her dependent like a slave. Of course this has cramped woman’s free growth in every way, and the man who takes advantage of her weakness, as you have done with Susie Dykes, deserves the execration of all honorable men.” “For God’s sake, father, don’t speak so loud!” cried Dan, who was in mortal terror lest Miss Marston should hear. “I will neither control my voice nor my indignation at your meanness. The whole world deserves to know the base dog who would deceive and betray a woman through her folly in loving him too well.” “Hold, sir! I have some feeling as well as you, and I won’t stand any more of this.”