But after twelve o'clock to-morrow night, according to your own showing, the law ceases to bind your daughter.
Therefore, on Monday morning, if there is no clergyman in the camp and these two wish it, I, as commandant, will marry them before all men, as I have the power to do." Then Marais broke into one of those raving fits of temper which were constitutional in him, and to my mind showed that he was never quite sane.

Oddly enough, it was on poor Marie that he concentrated his wrath.
He cursed her horribly because she had withstood his will and refused to marry Hernan Pereira.

He prayed that evil might fall on her; that she might never bear a child, and that if she did, it might die, and other things too unpleasant to mention.
We stared at him astonished, though I think that had he been any other man than the father of my betrothed, I should have struck him.

Retief, I noticed, lifted his hand to do so, then let it fall again, muttering: "Let be; he is possessed with a devil." At last Marais ceased, not, I think, from lack of words, but because he was exhausted, and stood before us, his tall form quivering, and his thin, nervous face working like that of a person in convulsions.

Then Marie, who had dropped her head beneath this storm, lifted it, and I saw that her deep eyes were all ablaze and that she was very white.
"You are my father," she said in a low voice, "and therefore I must submit to whatever you choose to say to me.