"Dear child!" repeated the girl, half crying. "Yes, yes, you treat me like a child—as if I could help being young—as if I could not feel and think and be miserable like other people. It's hard, it's cruel, it's—it's—"
Here Clara burst into a flood of tears, and leaping to her feet, would have run into the room where Lady Hope was sitting, but Closs caught her in his arms.
"What are you crying for, Clara? Why do you wish to run away? It is wrong to say this, but I must go, because of loving you as no man ever loved a woman before."
"A woman?" said Clara, and gleams of mischief peeped out from behind her tears. "You called me a child just now."
"Woman or child, Clara, you are the dearest thing to me on earth."
Clara struggled in his arms, and tried to push him from her.
"I—I don't believe you. There!"
"Don't believe me?"
Hepworth released the girl, and allowed her to stand alone. On any subject touching his honor he was peculiarly sensitive.
"Because—because men who love people don't run away from them. It—it isn't reasonable."