He folded her yet more closely to his breast.
While they held each other thus, forgetting all else in the world, his
father burst, furious and terrible, into the arbor!
He seized them with a strong and cruel rasp, and tore them pitilessly
asunder.
'Go into the house, boy,' he cried, 'and leave this'--
'Stop!' shouted Jason, springing to his feet, his face as white as death
and his eyes flashing--'Stop! Do not call her any name but a good name!
I would not bear it if you were twenty times my father!'
The old man stood transfixed.
'She is as good as you or as my mother, and will go to heaven as well as
you when she dies,' he continued passionately; 'as well as any of us; as
well as the minister! What did you come here for? Haven't you driven my
life almost to death ever since I can remember; and isn't that enough,
but you must come here and kill my darling, my dear, my love?'
He knelt where she lay on the ground.
'Hear the boy,' cried the father, in a rage equally terrible and far
less noble. 'Hear the boy go on about the baggage!'
The boy still knelt, unheeding anything save the senseless form beside
him.
'Wasn't it enough that you should wanton with a young woman in this
style, but you must do it on the holy Sabbath day?' the old man
continued.
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