“Mother,” broke in John impetuously--so impetuously that Mrs. Beacham’s heart was hardened thereby more than ever against the absent cause of her son’s very novel act of disrespect; “mother, I repeat what I said before, that there’s no earthly use either in abusing Honor or in talking of what can’t be helped. As for sending for her, or writing for her, or anything of the kind, that I’m not going to do--not yet awhile, that is. As you said just now, it’s only natural that the poor young thing should like a change. We’re old people, as you said, mother,” he added with a very sad smile, “compared to her, and I begin to think you were right a year and more ago, when you said that Honor was too young a wife for me. There’s a good many more gray hairs in my head, mother, than should be owned by my little girl’s husband. And then there’s her father, d----n him!” and John’s big fist came so heavily down upon the table that his mother almost trembled for the safety of her cups and saucers; “I know him to be as great a villain as ever stepped in shoe-leather; but, as I’ve often said before, he is _her_ father; and being that he’s about the only relation that she’s got, it’s only natural, I suppose, that she should hold to him. Ah me! That was a black day for all of us when he stirred me up to give him the bad blow that floored him. But for that, I should be a different man, mother, from what I am this day. If I’d said it at the first, if I hadn’t been a party to the fellow’s lie, I should stand on the old ground, mother, and that was better ground than what’s under my feet to-day; but I hoped, so I did, that the secret--Honor’s secret--would be kept. I little thought that the fellow had a purpose all the while in what he did; I little thought that Honor--but I am a fool, a downright idiot, to go on in this way! I couldn’t be worse if I was a lad of twenty, with nothing to think of in life but girls and their foolishness!” and John, who during the utterance of these self-condemning sentences had been pacing with hurried and heavy footsteps to and fro in the room, suddenly took himself off to his out-of-door business, letting--contrary to his wont, for he was rarely deficient in respect to his mother--the door of the little parlour close with a bang behind his retreating footsteps. END OF VOL. II. Robson and Son, Printers, Pancras Road, N.W. Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: from governness=> from governess {pg 204} front drawing-roon=> front drawing-room {pg 232} scanttily-filled=> scantily-filled {pg 256} for the persual of=> for the perusal of {pg 285}