To this Miss Blount declines to make any reply.
"I won't leave this spot to-day until you answer me," says Roger, fell determination on his brow; "Which—is—it?"
"I'm sure, at least, that I never liked Stephen in that way," confesses she, faintly.
"And you did like me?"
Silence again.
"Then," says Mr. Dare, wrathfully, "for the sake of a mere whim, a caprice, you flung me over and condemned me to months of misery? Did you know what you were doing? Did you feel unhappy? I hope to goodness you did," says Roger, indignantly; "if you endured even one quarter of what I have suffered, it would be punishment sufficient for you."
"Had you nothing to do with it?" asks she, nervously.
"No; it was entirely your own fault," replies he, hastily. Whereupon she very properly bursts into tears.
"Every woman," says some one, "is in the wrong till she cries; then, instantly, she is in the right."
So it is with Dulce. No sooner does Roger see "her tears down fa'" than, metaphorically speaking, he is on his knees before her. I am sure but for the people on the lake, who might find an unpleasant amount of amusement in the tableau, he would have done so literally.