"Give it me back, Guy; I warn you."
"Not till I have read it. I have a right."
"You have none. She is mine."
"Yours?" Guy laughed in his face.
"Yes, mine. Ask my father—ask my mother. They know."
"Mother!"—the letter fell from the poor lad's hand. "Mother, YOU would not deceive me. He only says it to vex me. I was in a passion, I know. Mother, it isn't true?"
His piteous tone—the almost childish way in which he caught at her sleeve, as she turned from him—ah, poor Guy!
"Edwin, is it my brother Edwin? Who would have thought it?" Half-bewildered, he looked from one to the other of us all; but no one spoke, no one contradicted him.
Edwin, his passion quite gone, stooped in a sorrowful and humble way to pick up his betrothed's letter. Then Guy flew at him, and caught him by the collar.
"You coward!—how dared you?—No, I won't hurt him; she is fond of him. Go away, every one of you. Oh, mother, mother, mother!"