By some means, then, Tom knew everything.
At last she said,
"I'm not going," and turned round.
"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first.
Where is my father?"
"Out on horseback."
"And my mother?"
"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."
"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?"
They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie,
"Come in here."
She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.
"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between you and Philip Wakem."
"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling.
"No," said Tom indignantly.
"But he shall know, if you attempt to use deceit toward me any further."
"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at hearing this word applied to her conduct.
"Tell me the whole truth, then."
"Perhaps you know it."
"Never mind whether I know it or not.
Tell me exactly what has happened, or my father shall know everything."
"I tell it for my father's sake, then."
"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you have despised his strongest feelings."
"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.
"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.
"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed between you and Philip Wakem.
When did you first meet him in the Red Deeps?"
"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly.
Tom's severity gave her a certain fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance.
"You need ask me no more questions.
We have been friendly a year.
We have met and walked together often.
He has lent me books."
"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.
Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:
"No, not quite all.
On Saturday he told me that he loved me.
I didn't think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend."
"And you encouraged him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust.
"I told him that I loved him too."
Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with his hands in his pockets.
At last he looked up and said coldly,–
"Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take,–either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father's Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father.
Choose!" Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible, drawing it forward, and opening it at the fly-leaf, where the writing was.
It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.
"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't ask me that.
I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain everything,–to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to my father. I feel something for Philip too.
He is not happy."
"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in."
"If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I laid my hand on the Bible.