Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed
his hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an
Iceland rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the
old man and his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be
done on the morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon
left the room and went up to his chamber to spend his last, his
only unhappy night at the farm. A yearning, pitying look from
Abigail accompanied him.
"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning,
as he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him
to the village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So,
without a word of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last
look at her beloved face, he was taken away.
IV.
True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath
Mitchenor, the thought of resistance to her father's will never
crossed her mind. It was fixed that she must renounce all
intercourse with Richard Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her
to see him again during the few hours he remained in the house; but
the sacred love, thus rudely dragged to the light and outraged, was
still her own.
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