“As young ladies say in old-fashioned romances,” he cried mockingly. “There, you force me to speak very plainly to you. I must; and you are wise enough to see that every word is true. Now listen. You have not many friends; I may say I, your lover, am the only one; but when you took that step with me one night, eloping from your bedroom window, placing yourself under my protection, and living here secluded with me in this old house for all these months, what would they say? Little enough, perhaps nothing; but there is a significant shrug of the shoulders which people give, and which means much, my child, respecting a woman’s character. You see now that you must marry me.”
“No,” she said calmly; “I trusted myself to the guardianship of a man almost old enough to be my grandfather. He professed to be my father’s friend, and I fled to him to save myself from insult. Will the world blame me for that, Mr Garstang?”
“Yes, the world will, and will not believe.”
“Then what is the opinion of the world, as you term it, worth? Now, sir, I insist upon your letting me go to my room.”
As she spoke, she struggled violently, and throwing herself back over the head of the couch made a snatch at the bell-pull, with such success that the smothered tones of a violent peal reached where they were.
Garstang started up angrily, and taking advantage of her momentary freedom, Kate sprang to the door and turned the key, but before she could open it he was at her side.
“You foolish child!” he said, in a low angry voice; “how can you act—”
Half mad with fear, she struck at him, the back of her hand catching him sharply on the lips, and before he could recover from his surprise, she had passed through the door and fled to her room, where she locked and bolted herself in, and then sank panting and sobbing violently upon her knees beside her bed.