'
'I think it was better you should tell me. It can't go on like
this; I feel that just as you do. I must tell father that he is
making our lives a burden to us.'
'Oh, you mustn't speak to him like that, Marian! I wouldn't for
anything make unkindness between you and your father; that would
be the worst thing I'd done yet. I'd rather go away and work for
my own living than make trouble between you and him.'
'It isn't you who make trouble; it's father. I ought to have
spoken to him before this; I had no right to stand by and see how
much you suffered from his ill-temper.'
The longer they talked, the firmer grew Marian's resolve to front
her father's tyrannous ill-humour, and in one way or another to
change the intolerable state of things. She had been weak to hold
her peace so long; at her age it was a simple duty to interfere
when her mother was treated with such flagrant injustice. Her
father's behaviour was unworthy of a thinking man, and he must be
made to feel that.
Yule did not return. Dinner was delayed for half an hour, then
Marian declared that they would wait no longer.
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