“I shall not give them the opportunity.  Beatrice cannot live in this beastly climate.”

“The climate is wrong also?  Naturally.  It would follow the religion and the woman.  Harry Sandal, I wish I had died, ere my ears had heard such a shame and sorrow for my father and mother!  Where are you going to live, then?”

“In Florence.  It is the birthplace of Beatrice the city associated with all her triumphs.”

“God have mercy, Harry!  Her triumphs!  Is she, then, an actress?”

“She is a singer,—­a wonderful singer; one to whom the world has listened with breathless delight.”

“A singing woman!  And you have married her?  It is an outrage on your ancestors, and on your parents and sisters.”

“I will not hear you speak in that way, Charlotte.  Of course I married her.  Did you wish me to ruin and debase her? That, I suppose, you could have forgiven.  My sin against the Sandals and society is, that I married her.”

“No, sir; you know better.  Your sin is in having any thing whatever to do with her.  There is not a soul in Sandal that would have hesitated between ruin and marriage.  If it had to be one or the other, then father and mother both, then I, then all your friends, would have said without hesitation, ‘Marry the woman.’”

“I expected and hoped this would be your view of the situation.  I could not give up Beatrice, and I could not be a scoundrel to her.”

“You might have thought of another woman besides Beatrice.  Is a sin against a mother a less sin than one against a strange woman?  A mother is something sacred.  To wound her heart is to throw a stone at her.  You have committed a sort of sacrilege.  And you are married.  No entreaties can prevent, and no repentance can avail.  Oh, what a sorrow to darken all the rest of father’s and mother’s days!  What right have you to spoil their lives, in order to give yourself a little pleasure?  O Harry!  I never knew that you were selfish before.”

“I deserve all you say, Charley, but I loved Beatrice so much.”

“Are you sure, even of that excuse?  I heard you vow that you loved Eliza Pierson ‘so much,’ and Fanny Ulloch ‘so much,’ and Emily Beverley ’so much.’  Why did you not come home, and speak to me before it was too late?  Why come at all now?”

“Because I want to talk to you about money.  I have sold out.”

“Sold out?  Is there any more bad news?  Do you know what father paid for your commission?  Do you know how it hampered him to do it? that, in fact, he has never been quite easy about ready money since?”

“I had to sell out.  Did I not tell you that Beatrice could not live in this climate?  She was very ill when she returned to Italy.  Signor Lanza was in great trouble about her.”

“Signor Lanza?  Her brother, I suppose.”

“You suppose wrong.  He is her father.”

“For her, then, you have given up your faith, your country, your home, your profession, every thing that other men hold dear and sacred.  Do you expect father to support you?  Or is your wife to sing in Italy?”