Though she had frequently shown her guardian unequivocal evidence of
her aversion, Esther continued to suffer from his persecutions, until
one day he proceeded farther and was more pressing than usual. She
possess'd some of her brother's mettlesome temper, and gave him
an abrupt and most decided refusal. With dignity, she exposed the
baseness of his conduct, and forbade him ever again mentioning
marriage to her. He retorted bitterly, vaunted his hold on her and
Philip, and swore an oath that unless she became his wife, they should
both thenceforward become penniless. Losing his habitual self-control
in his exasperation, he even added insults such as woman never
receives from any one deserving the name of man, and at his own
convenience left the house. That day, Philip return'd to New York,
after an absence of several weeks on the business of a mercantile
house in whose employment he had lately engaged.
Toward the latter part of the same afternoon, Mr. Covert was sitting
in his office, in Nassau street, busily at work, when a knock at the
door announc'd a visitor, and directly afterward young Marsh enter'd
the room. His face exhibited a peculiar pallid appearance that did
not strike Covert at all agreeably, and he call'd his clerk from an
adjoining room, and gave him something to do at a desk near by.
"I wish to see you alone, Mr. Covert, if convenient," said the
newcomer.
"We can talk quite well enough where we are," answer'd the lawyer;
"indeed, I don't know that I have any leisure to talk at all, for just
now I am very much press'd with business.
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