"Sir!" she cried, with indignant emphasis; but she said no more, her lips closed tightly, and her eyebrows straightened in a frown.
"They tell me you are going to be married, Rose? You must hear me this once. I am resolved to have it out with you."
She threw back her head, and her nostrils quivered in pride. The angry blood suffused her temples now; there was no paleness and no sign of fear. "Allow me to pass," she answered, haughtily.
"Not till you hear me, Rose. I mean to save you from yourself."
"What right have you to interfere with me?"
"The strongest; the right of one who loves you."
"You have _no_ right! The law denies it. It gives me freedom. You shall not interfere."
"Calm yourself, Rose. I cannot live without you. And more, you never will be happy but with me."
"Bah! you are too long of finding it out. I am free, and I shall keep my liberty as far as you are concerned. I have tried you, and know you to my cost. It is over now. The law has cried quits between us."
"It cannot, Rose! Think of the old time in Canada!--the evenings when we sang together, and talked in the porch--the walks between the corn-fields--the afternoons in the orchard--and the promises we made. Can you ever forget them?"
"How dare you remind me of them? Have you no decent shame? You might wish the ground to open and let you through, rather than hear those old days named, and be reminded how you have outraged a trusting girl!"
"I have been true to my vows, Rose. I make no merit of it; I could not have been otherwise. It was my glory and delight to fulfil them."
"And you did it admirably! certainly. It was in fulfilment of them, I suppose, that you made fierce love to that silly Horatia Simpkins, under my very nose, and before the eyes of her own husband? If it had even been a handsome woman, or one not absolutely a fool, the slight might have been less unpardonable. But with her!"
"What else could I have done?--the way you went on with her husband--that conceited ass Rupert. Would you have had me stand by, like a gawk, with my thumb in my mouth, assenting to your outrageous flirtation, which nearly drove his poor little silly wife out of her wits with jealousy? She is not as clever, perhaps, as you are, but at least she is fond of her husband!"