"Nothing."
"And if your parents are still willing to forgive you, if your relatives, whose affection you do not deserve, are disposed not to give you up, if you see that parents and relatives join hands in order to save your imperilled honor,--if they propose to give you in the person of a husband a friend and protector, who will keep you hereafter from committing such follies, to use no harsher name, and if one of your relatives is willing to assume this difficult task of being your husband, friend, and tutor,--have you nothing to say to that also?"
"Oh yes," replied Helen, who had been standing there, pale and motionless, without moving a muscle, fixing her large dark eyes with an expression of invincible courage, till she had risen to confront her, "Oh yes! I have to reply to that, that I prefer death a thousand times to becoming Felix's wife."
She said this calmly, slowly, weighing, as it were, every syllable.
"And if your parents insist?"
"Then I cannot and shall not obey."
"And if they announce to-night your engagement to Felix to the assembled guests?"
"Then I shall say to the assembled guests what I have just said to you."
"Is that your final decision?"
"It is, so help me God!"