“Because there was no time to ask it, father,” said Suzanne, looking down, “for Ralph and I only spoke together this morning.”
“He spoke to you this morning, and now it seems that you are ready to forsake your father and your mother and to follow him across the world, you wicked and ungrateful child.”
“I am not wicked and I am not ungrateful,” answered Suzanne; “it is you who are wicked, who want to send Ralph away and break all our hearts.”
“It is false, miss,” shouted her father in answer, “for you know well that I do not want to send him away.”
“Then why did you tell him that he must go and take your roan horse and new hat?”
“Is it for his own good that he should go away from all of us who love him and be lost across the sea?” and choking she burst into tears, while her father muttered:
“Why, the girl has become like a tiger, she who was milder than a sheep!”
“Hush, Suzanne,” broke in Ralph, “and you who have been father and mother to me, listen I pray you. It is true that Suzanne and I love each other very dearly, as we have always loved each other, though how much we did not know till this morning. Now, I am a waif and a castaway whom you have nurtured, and have neither lands nor goods of my own, therefore you may well think that I am no match for your daughter, who is so beautiful, and who, if she outlives you, will inherit all that you have. If you decide thus it is just, however hard it may be. But you tell me, though I have heard nothing of it till now, and I think that it may be but idle talk, that I have both lands and goods far away in England, and you bid me begone to them. Well, if you turn me out I must go, for I cannot stay alone in the veldt without a house, or a friend, or a hoof of cattle. But then I tell you that when Suzanne is of age I shall return and marry her, and take her away with me, as I have a right to do if she desires it, for I will not lose everything that I love in the world at one stroke. Indeed nothing but death shall part me from Suzanne. Therefore, it comes to this: either you must let me stay here and, poor as I am, be married to Suzanne when it shall please you, or, if you dismiss me, you must be ready to see me come back and take away Suzanne.”