She went back against the table and stood there, supporting herself while she still faced him. "You forget—" she said, her voice very low,—"I think you forget—that they are my people—I belong to them!"
"No, you don't!" he flung back almost fiercely. "You belong to me!"
A great shiver went through her. She clenched her hands to repress it. "I don't see," she said, "how I can—possibly—stay with you—after this."
"What?" He strode forward and caught her by the shoulders. She was aware of a sudden hot blaze of anger in him that made her think of the squire. He held her in a grip that was merciless. "Do you know what you are saying?" he asked.
She tried to hold him from her, but he pressed her to him with a dominance that would not brook resistance.
"Do you?" he said. "Do you?"
His face was terrible. She felt the hard hammer of his heart against her own, and a sense of struggling against overwhelming odds came upon her.
She bowed her head against his shoulder. "Oh, Dick!" she said. "It is you—who—don't—know!"
His hold did not relax, and for a space he said no word, but stood breathing deeply as a man who faces some deadly peril.
He spoke at length, and in his voice was something she had never heard before—something from which she shrank uncontrollably, as the victim shrinks from the branding-iron.