“I do not understand,” he said, deliberately, “why my words should stand in need of explanation. I endeavored to make them sufficiently intelligible.”
“You do not remember what you said, Jacob. I am sure that you cannot, or you would not speak thus,” she said, earnestly.
“Perhaps your memory is better,” said the scrivener, sneeringly. “Possibly you will do me the favor to repeat it.”
“Repeat it!”
“Yes, I said so,” triumphing as he spoke over her evident distress; “come, I am listening.”
He drew his chair round so as to face Margaret, and fixed his eyes cruelly upon her. Margaret was a creature of impulse. Hers was no calm, equable temperament. Her features could express trustful, confiding affection, or the intensity of scorn and hatred. She had come to make a last appeal to Jacob Wynne. He did not deserve it, but it is hard for a woman to resolve to injure a man who has been to her an object of affection. Jacob had often treated her with harshness. This she could bear, but the revelation of his perfidy, which she had heard from his own lips at Staten Island, came upon her with the force of a sudden blow, which at once prostrated her. This was an insult which she could not forgive, if his words were indeed true. In the hope, slight as it was, that it might prove to have been merely an outburst of Jacob’s irritability, she had determined upon this interview that her doubts might be set at rest. Had Jacob known the purpose which was in her heart, and the precise character of the motive which had brought her to him, he would have been more cautious in exasperating a woman who had his ruin in her power. This, however, he did not know. He underrated Margaret’s strength of mind; he regarded her as one whom he might ill-treat with impunity, who might annoy him, to be sure, but was incapable of doing him any serious injury; whom he could shake off at any time, as he had resolved to do now.
When Margaret saw the triumphant smile upon his face, she felt that her worst fears were likely to be realized. Still she resolved not to forego her purpose. Dropping the pleading tone which she had hitherto employed, she said, with an outward calmness which surprised Jacob, and which she only assumed by a determined effort,—
“Be it so. Since you desire it, I will force myself to repeat those words. You remember, Jacob, the occasion of my presenting myself before you. Without my knowledge you had invited a young woman to accompany you to Staten Island.”
“And did you think I was responsible to you? Would you have had me ask your gracious permission?” asked Jacob, with a sneer.
“You can tell best,” said Margaret, steadily, “whether this excursion was made accidentally or purposely, without my knowledge; if the latter, it betrayed a consciousness on your part that I had a right to object.”