"’Give her my message,’ he sneered. ’You would be likely to!’
"’Stop!’ I said. ’My word, MacBirney, is good. Friend and foe of mine will tell you that. Even my enemies accept my word. But if I could bring myself to deceive those that trust me I would choose enemies to prey upon before I chose friends. I could deceive my own partners. I could play false to my own brother--all this I could do and more. But if I could practise deceits a thousand times viler than these, I could not, so help me God, lie to a trusting girl that I had asked to be my wife and the mother of my children! Whatever else of baseness I stooped to, _that_ word should be forever good!’
"Alice, I struck the table a blow that made the inkstands jump. My eye-glasses went with a crash. Nelson and McCrea came running in; MacBirney turned white. He tried to stretch his lips in a smile; it was ghastly. Everybody was looking at me. I got up without a word to any one and left the room."
Alice caught his sleeve. "Robert, I am proud of you! How much better you struck than you knew! Oh," she cried, "how could I help loving you?"
"Don’t give it for me; keep it for me. You will marry me; won’t you? What did the cur mean by saying what he did, Alice?"
"He meant to taunt me; to remind me of how long I tried to live in some measure up to the religion that he used every means to drive me from--and did drive me from."
"He meant I must come to you without its blessing."
He looked suddenly and keenly at her. "Should you be happier with its blessing?"
She gazed away. "It is a happiness I have lost."
"I will trust to God for _some_ escape from my difficulties. What else can I do? My husband!" she exclaimed bitterly--"generous man to remind me of religion!"
Kimberly spoke with a quick resolve. "I am going to look into this matter of where you stand as a wife. I am going to know why you can’t have a chance to live your life with me. If I give you back what he has robbed you of, our happiness will be doubled."
When Kimberly reached The Towers it was dusk. Brother Francis was walking on the terrace. Kimberly joined him. "How is Uncle John to-day, Francis?"
"Always the same. It is an astonishing vitality in your family, Robert."
"But all that need strength do not have it. How is your market to-day?"