When I came in my father had gone to bed, but my mother was waiting to
see me. She caught me in her arms, and, weeping like a child, cried,
“Oh, I have heard! He did not tell me beforehand, or I should have
forbade it. Thou shouldst never have gone! never! It was cruel! _Mon
Dieu!_ how could they do it!”
It was I who now had to comfort, and this helped me amazingly, and yet
added to my just anger; for why must she, who was innocent, be thus made
to suffer? My father, when he came in, had asked for me. He had met my
cousin, who had seen me going down Front street, and had hinted that I
meant to find comfort at the coffee-house among the officers. She knew
better, and had said her mind of this kinsman and his ways; upon
which my father had gone angry to his bed. I was beginning to have an
increasing distrust and dislike of Arthur, and the present news did not
lessen either feeling. So at last here was an end of the consequences of
my sad night at the coffee-house.