"Is she a prisoner?"
"That is between her and me, and is no affair of yours. You are intruding here, Mr. Thwaite, and cannot possibly gain anything by your intrusion." Then she strode out in the passage, and motioned him to the front door. "Mr. Thwaite, I will beg you to leave this house, which for the present is mine. If you have any proper feeling you will not stay after I have told you that you are not welcome."
But Lady Anna, though she had not expected the coming of her lover, had heard the sound of voices, and then became aware that the man was below. As her mother was speaking she rushed down-stairs and threw herself into her lover's arms. "It shall never be so in my presence," said the Countess, trying to drag the girl from his embrace by the shoulders.
"Anna;—my own Anna," said Daniel in an ecstacy of bliss. It was not only that his sweetheart was his own, but that her spirit was so high.
"Daniel!" she said, still struggling in his arms.
By this time they were all in the parlour, whither the Countess had been satisfied to retreat to escape the eyes of the women who clustered at the top of the kitchen stairs. "Daniel Thwaite," said the Countess, "if you do not leave this, the blood which will be shed shall rest on your head," and so saying, she drew nigh to the window and pulled down the blind. She then crossed over and did the same to the other blind, and having done so, took her place close to a heavy upright desk, which stood between the fireplace and the window. When the two ladies first came to the house they had occupied only the first and second floors;—but, since the success of their cause, the whole had been taken, including the parlour in which this scene was being acted; and the Countess spent many hours daily sitting at the heavy desk in this dark gloomy chamber.
"Whose blood shall be shed?" said Lady Anna, turning to her mother.
"It is the raving of madness," said Daniel.
"Whether it be madness or not, you shall find, sir, that it is true. Take your hands from her. Would you disgrace the child in the presence of her mother?"
"There is no disgrace, mamma. He is my own, and I am his. Why should you try to part us?"