“Stay with me, Mary, pray,” panted Claude. And she looked wildly round for a way of escape, her eyes resting last upon the window, which opened over a steep portion of the cliff.
“Oh! what are you thinking?” said Mary wildly.
“Ah!” exclaimed Glyddyr, with a savage expression crossing his face, “the window? No; he’s not there. Curse him! I could shoot him like a dog.”
Claude, covered her quivering face with her hands.
“Yes, madam, it’s time we came to a little explanation about that, and then we can go on happily. No trifling with me.—Now then,” he cried fiercely, “will you go?”
“No,” cried Mary, turning upon him so sharply that he dropped the hand he had raised to seize her by the shoulder. “How dare you come into my cousin’s presence like this? Shame upon you! She is ill—agitated—not fit to meet you now, and you dare to force your way to her like this—drunken as one of the quarrymen at his worst.”
“What!”
“Is this the gentleman who begged and pleaded and humbled himself to her? You shall not stop here now, master or no master—husband or no husband. She is my dear cousin, and—”
“She is my wife,” thundered Glyddyr. “My slave if I like; and as for you—”
“Oh, would that my uncle were alive to see his cruel work!”