The Woman Thou Gavest Me

ll this money spent? And everything signed and
sealed and witnessed!"

"Yes, if you please, sir, because. . . ."

I got no farther, for flinging down his razor my father rose in a
towering rage.

"Are you mad? Has somebody been putting the evil eye on you? The
greatest match this island has ever seen, and you say postpone--put it
off, stop it, that's what you mean. Do you want to make a fool of a man?
At the last moment, too. Just when there's nothing left but to go to the
High Bailiff and the Church! . . . But I see--I see what it is. It's
that young Conrad--he's been writing to you."

I tried to say no, but my father bore me down.

"Don't go to deny it, ma'am. He has been writing to every one--the
Bishop, Father Dan, myself even. Denouncing the marriage if you plaze."

My father, in his great excitement, was breaking with withering scorn
into his native speech.

"Aw yes, though, denouncing and damning it, they're telling me! Mighty
neighbourly of him, I'm sure! Just a neighbour lad without a penny at
his back to take all that throuble! If I had known he felt like that
about it I might have axed his consent! The imperence, though! The
imperence of sin! A father has no rights, it seems! A daughter is a
separate being, and all to that! Well, well! Amazing thick, isn't it?"

He was walking up and down the room with his heavy tread, making the
floor shake.

"Then that woman in Rome--I wouldn't trust but she has been putting
notions into your head, too. All the new-fangled fooleries, I'll go
bail. Women and men equal, not a ha'p'orth of difference between them!
The blatherskites!"

I was silenced, and I must have covered my face and cried, for after a
while my father softened, and touching my shoulder he asked me if a man
of sixty-five was not likely to know better than a girl of nineteen what
was good for her, and whether I supposed he had not satisfied himself
that this marriage was a good thing for me and for him and for
everybody.

"Do you think I'm not doing my best f

Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine CH, KBE (May 14, 1853August 31, 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British author. He is best known as a novelist and playwright of the late Victorian and the Edwardian eras. In his time he was exceedingly popular and at the peak of his success his novels outsold those of his contemporaries. Many of his novels were also made into films. His novels were primarily romantic in nature, involving the love triangle, but they did also address some of the more serious political and social issues of the day.

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