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.