You'd cut
us i' two.'
Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of
Marner's simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him
that the weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily passed by those
who have never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was
undoubtedly for Eppie's welfare; and he felt himself called upon,
for her sake, to assert his authority.
'I should have thought, Marner,' he said, severely- 'I should
have thought your affection for Eppie would have made you rejoice in
what was for her good, even if it did call upon you to give up
something. You ought to remember that your own life is uncertain,
and that she's at an age now when her lot may soon be fixed in a way
very different from what it would be in her father's home: she may
marry some low working-man, and then, whatever I might do for her, I
couldn't make her well-off. You're putting yourself in the way of
her welfare; and though I'm sorry to hurt you after what you've
done, and what I've left undone, I feel now it's my duty to insist
on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do my duty.'
It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that
was most deeply stirred by this last speech of Godfrey's. Thought
had been very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her
old long-loved father and this new unfamiliar father who had
suddenly come to fill the place of that black featureless shadow which
had held the ring and placed it on her mother's finger.
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