"'We knew that, Massingberd Heath, although the girl did not know it; she trusted you, although your every word was false.'
"'She is fool enough for anything,' returned the other brutally. 'But I know all this. Have you dared to bring me here merely to repeat so stale a story?'
"'A story with an ending that you have yet to learn,' pursued my uncle sternly. You were wedded by no gipsy mummeries, as you call them; you took Sinnamenta Liversedge, in the presence of many persons, solemnly to wife.'
"'Ay, and I might take her sister there, and marry her to-day after the same fashion, and no law could say me "nay."'
"'Yes, <i>here</i>, Massingberd Heath; but not at Kirk-Yetholm.'
"'And why not?' inquired the ruffian, with a mocking laugh, that had, however, something shrill and wavering in it.
"'Because Kirk-Yetholm is over the Border, and, by the laws of Scotland, my niece Sinnamenta is your wife, proud man, and nothing but death can dissever the bond!'
"An awful silence succeeded my uncle's words. Massingberd Heath turned livid, and twice in vain essayed to speak; he was well nigh strangled by passion.
"'I thank heaven, Rachel,' murmured my little sister, 'that I am not that shame to thee and to my race which I thought myself to be.'
"'You shall have but little to thank heaven for, girl, if this be true,' cried her husband hoarse with concentrated rage; 'somebody shall pay for this.'
"'It <i>is</i> true,' quoth my father, 'and you feel it to be so. Nothing remains, then, but to make the best of it. We do not seek anything at your hands, nor--'
"'Only the right of camping undisturbed about Fairburn,' interposed my uncle Morris, who was of a grasping disposition, and had planned the whole matter, I fear, not without an eye to the advantage of his tribe. 'You wouldn't treat your wife's family as trespassers.'
"'Certainly not,' returned Massingberd Heath, with bitterness; 'they shall be most welcome. I should be extremely sorry if they were to leave my neighbourhood just yet. In the meantime, however, I want my wife--my Wife. Come along with me, my pretty one.'
"He looked like a wild beast, within springing distance of his prey.
"'Oh, father, uncle, defend me!' cried the miserable girl. 'What have you done to bring this man's vengeance upon me?'