"I prefer to keep them to myself."
"Miss Douglas," said Orton Campbell, after a pause, "all this is very foolish and humiliating. There is only one proper course for you to pursue."
"What is it?"
"Return to New York with me in the next steamer, and place yourself once more under the care of my father, whose protection you never ought to have left."
"'Protection'!" repeated Florence, with bitter emphasis. "What protection did he give me?"
"All that was required."
"'All that was required'? You know very well that you and he had conspired to put me in a mad-house if I would not agree to enrich you by giving you my hand."
"That is not true," said Orton Campbell, rather confused.
"'Not true'? He distinctly threatened to do it as a means of terrifying me into compliance with his and your wishes. It was not until then that I decided to leave your house and seek some place of refuge until time and the law should set me completely free from your family and their machinations."
"It is evident, Miss Douglas, that you are under a delusion. Your way of talking is sufficient to show that your mind is affected. Any good physician would need no other proof."