“He’s welcome to go. He’s more welcome to go than to stay. But let him never come back. Let him never put his head inside that door. And let you never speak a word more in his favour, or you’ll disown your own father, likewise, and what your father says of him he’ll have to come to say of you. Now I see why them men yonder held aloof from me. They says to one another, ‘Here comes the man as ain’t good enough for his own son!’ Lizzie⁠—!”

But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, with a face quite strange to him, shrinking back against the wall, with her hands before her eyes.

“Father, don’t! I can’t bear to see you striking with it. Put it down!”

He looked at the knife; but in his astonishment still held it.

“Father, it’s too horrible. O put it down, put it down!”