His finger silently pointed her to withdraw.
"Oh, father!"-- the exclamation was barely murmured.
"Go!" was the sole answer, with the finger still uplift.
In silence, she glided away; not, however, without stealing a fond and assuring glance at her lover.
Her departure was the signal for that issue between the two remaining parties for which each was preparing in his own fashion.

Ralph had not beheld the dumb show, in which Edith was dismissed, without a rising impulse of choler.

The manner of the thing had been particularly offensive to him.

But the father of Edith, whatever his offence, had suddenly risen into new consideration in the young man's mind, from the moment that he fully comprehended his feelings for the daughter.

He was accordingly, somewhat disposed to temporize, though there was still a lurking desire in his mind, to demand an explanation of those supercilious glances which had so offended him.
But the meditations of neither party consumed one twentieth part of the time that we have taken in hinting what they were.