Aylesford, whose angry sense of humiliation had been gradually rising, was subdued again by these last words, for he thought Kate was relenting. He, therefore, answered eagerly—
“There is no incompatibility. Or,” for she shook her head, “there shall be none. Only try me. I will be anything you wish. We have been apart so long, that perhaps we do differ in some things; but I place myself in your hands; mould me as you will.”
His impassioned manner left no doubt on his hearer’s mind that he was sincere, at least for the time; but Kate well knew that natures like his were past reforming; and she could not, therefore, permit herself to be misled by these earnest protestations. The interview was becoming too painful, and she rose to terminate it.
“Don’t talk in that way, Charles,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “Please don’t,” she added, placing her hand restrainingly on his arm, as she saw he was about to renew his pleadings. “My decision is final. The heart cannot be forced.”
There was no mistaking the sincerity of this avowal. It left no room for hope. Her manner also confirmed her words. As Aylesford seized her dress to detain her, when she would now have left the room, she gently but resolutely removed his hold.
The ill-regulated nature of her cousin passed, in a moment, from entreaty to rage. He was like one of those volcanic countries, where suddenly, on a clear day, the heavens are filled with smoke and the solid ground shaken with earthquakes.
“Then you love this Major Gordon,” he cried, livid with suppressed passion. “You have lost your heart, like a romantic fool, to a rebel beggar, merely because he happened to be present when you escaped from shipwreck. Yes! go,” he added, bitterly, as Kate, with dignity, was proceeding towards the door, “but know that I will go to him, and force down his throat a disavowal of his suit to you.”
This threat checked Kate’s steps. The scandal of an encounter between her cousin and her preserver, apart from her well-founded dread of the former’s skill at fence, induced her to stop, with the hope of preventing this mad threat from being executed.
“You will do no such thing,” she said, fronting Aylesford with decision, yet with something of entreaty too in her manner. “You will not, you cannot, so disgrace her whom, but a moment ago, you professed to love. Nay, Charles,” she continued, as he was turning away, and advancing quickly she caught him by the arm, “you must promise me this. I demand it as a woman, as a relative,” and seeing he was still unmoved, she added, with spirit— “the honor of our family is concerned, that a gentleman who preserved my life should not be so grossly insulted; and I call on you, as my nearest male connexion, to sustain that honor.”
But Aylesford still turned from her with gloomy rage. As she still continued to hold fast to him, he finally shook her off roughly, saying—