"Pride will have a fall, my fine lady—you'll be tame enough yet for all your tantarums, by Jove."
Breathless with haste and agitation, Mary reached the study, where she knew her brother was now generally to be found. He was there engaged in the miserable labour of looking through accounts and letters, in arranging the complicated records of his own ruin.
"Brother," said she, running to his side with the earnestness of deep agitation, "brother, listen to me."
He raised his eyes, and at a glance easily divined the cause of her excitement.
"Well," said he, "speak on—I hear."
"Brother," she resumed, "that man—that Mr. Blarden, came uninvited into my study; he was at first very coarse and free in his manner—very disagreeable and impudent—he refused to leave me when I requested him to do so, and every moment became more and more insolent—his manner and language terrified me. Brother, dear brother, you must not expose me to another such scene as that which has just passed."
Ashwoode paused for a good while, with the pen still in his fingers, and his eyes fixed abstractedly upon his sister's pale face. At length he said,—
"Do you wish me to make this a quarrel with Blarden? Was there enough to warrant a—a duel?"
He well knew, however, that he was safe in putting the question, and in anticipating her answer, he calculated rightly the strength of his sister's affection for him.
"Oh! no, no, brother—no!" she cried, with imploring terror; "dear brother, you are everything to me now. No, no; promise that you will not!"