“Whose fault is it?” she asked, breaking down ignominiously. “Who is to blame? I never ask you if other people make you forget me. I wanted to—to see you so much that I—I ran madly after you for a quarter of a mile, at the risk of being looked upon as a lunatic by any one who might have chanced to see me. But you don't care for that. I had better have bowed to you and passed on if we had met. Let me go!”
“No,” said Griffith, “you shall not go. God knows if I could keep you, you should never leave my arms again.”
“You would tire of me in a week, if I belonged to you in real earnest,” she said, not trying to get away at all now, however.
“Tire of you!” he exclaimed, in a shaken voice. “Of you!” And all at once he drew her round so that the light of the nearest lamp could fall on her face. “Look here!” he whispered, sharply; “Dolly, I swear to you, that if there lives a man on earth base and heartless enough to rob me of you, I will kill him as sure as I breathe the breath of life!”
She had seen him impassioned enough often before, but she had never seen him in as wild a mood as he was when he uttered these words. She was so frightened that she broke into a little cry, and put her hand up to his lips.
“Griffith!” she said, “Grif!—dear old fellow. You don't know what you are saying. Oh! don't—don't!”
Her horror brought him to his senses again; but he had terrified her so that she was trembling all over, and clung to him nervously when he tried to console her.
“It is n't like you to speak in such a way,” she faltered, in the midst of her tears. “Oh, how dreadfully wrong things must be getting, to make you so cruel!”
It took so long a time to reassure and restore her to her calmness, that he repented his rashness a dozen times. But he managed to comfort her at length, though to the last she was tearful and dejected, and her voice was broken with soft, sorrowful little catchings of the breath.
“Don't let us talk about Ralph Gowan,” she pleaded, when he had persuaded her to walk on with him again. “Let us talk about ourselves,—we are always safe when we talk about ourselves,” with an innocent, mournful smile.