It burst open with a
great clang and clash and wide tinkle of shivering and scattering glass,
and a small figure leaped into the room with a second cry that sounded
like a curse in the ears of the father. She threw herself on the
prostrate youth, and covered his body with hers, then turned her head
and looked up at the father with indignant defiance in her flashing eye.
Cowed with terror, and smarting with keenest pain, the youth took his
wife in his arms and sobbed like the beaten thing he was. Amy's eye
gleamed if possible more indignantly still. Protection grew fierce, and
fanned the burning sense of wrong. The father stood over them like a
fury rather than a fate--stood as the shock of Amy's cry, and her stormy
entrance, like that of an avenging angel, had fixed him. But presently
he began to recover his senses, and not unnaturally sprang to the
conclusion that here was the cause of all his misery--some worthless
girl that had drawn Cornelius into her toils, and ruined him and his
family for ever! The thought set the geyser of his rage roaring and
spouting in the face of heaven. He heaved his whip, and the devil having
none of the respect of the ordinary well bred Englishman for even the
least adorable of women, the blow fell.
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