"Answer me," he said again; and again he shook her.
"I have answered you. I will say nothing of the kind that you want me to say. My grandfather, up to the latest moment that I saw him, knew what he was about. He was not an idiot. He was, I believe, only carrying out a purpose fixed long before. You will not make me change what I say by looking at me like that, nor get it by shaking me. You don't know me, George, if you think you can frighten me like a child."
He heard her to the last word, still keeping his hand upon her, and holding her by the cloak she wore; but the violence of his grasp had relaxed itself, and he let her finish her words, as though his object had simply been to make her speak out to him what she had to say. "Oh," said he, when she had done, "That's to be it; is it? That's your idea of honesty. The very name of the money being your own has been too much for you. I wonder whether you and my uncle had contrived it all between you beforehand?"
"You will not dare to ask him, because he is a man," said Kate, her eyes brimming with tears, not through fear, but in very vexation at the nature of the charge he had brought against her.
"Shall I not? You will see what I dare do. As for you, with all your promises—. Kate, you know that I keep my word. Say that you will do as I desire you, or I will be the death of you."
"Do you mean that you will murder me?" said she.
"Murder you! yes; why not? Treated as I have been among you, do you suppose that I shall stick at anything? Why should I not murder you—you and Alice, too, seeing how you have betrayed me?"
"Poor Alice!" As she spoke the words she looked straight into his eyes, as though defying him, as far as she herself were concerned.
"Poor Alice, indeed! D–––– hypocrite! There's a pair of you; cursed, whining, false, intriguing hypocrites. There; go down and tell your uncle and that old woman there that I threatened to murder you. Tell the judge so, when you're brought into court to swear me out of my property. You false liar!" Then he pushed her from him with great violence, so that she fell heavily upon the stony ground.
He did not stop to help her up, or even to look at her as she lay, but walked away across the heath, neither taking the track on towards Haweswater, nor returning by the path which had brought them thither. He went away northwards across the wild fell; and Kate, having risen up and seated herself on a small cairn of stones which stood there, watched him as he descended the slope of the hill till he was out of sight. He did not run, but he seemed to move rapidly, and he never once turned round to look at her. He went away, down the hill northwards, and presently the curving of the ground hid him from her view.