"Do you mean that you do not wish to go back to the Yonkers home and marry me?" he demanded.
But before she could find time to reply, he went on:
"You were terribly foolish to grow so jealous of Iris Vincent as to run away from me. Why, I—I was merely flirting with her because she was pretty.
"Why, she is married now, and at the other end of the world, for aught I know or care. I can only add that, from the moment I learned of your disappearance, I have been searching for you night and day. Oh, Dorothy, now that I have found you, do not treat me like this, I beseech you! Let us kiss and make up. We are driving direct toward the parsonage, where we are to be married.
"Few men would care for you so much upon making the terrible discovery that you had fled from home and directly to the arms of an old lover, remaining under his roof until you were cast out from it by that lover himself. I do not know even what your quarrel with him was about. I do not ask to know. The object which took me there, I do not mind telling you. I had a quarrel with your lover, Jack Garner. We were to meet early this morning to settle the affair of honor; but as he did not show up to make the arrangements, I forced my way into his house, in order that I might not miss him. I heard him turning you from his door. Then amazement held me spell-bound. I shall take this into account when—when I have my settlement with him, later on. Any indignity offered to you shall be my affair, as your husband, to settle."
Dorothy had drawn back from him listening with horror to the words that fell from his lips.
"The duel must be averted at any cost," she told herself; yet she could not—oh, she could not!—marry him. "I must think of some way out of this," thought Dorothy, in the wildest agony. "I must save myself, and save him, too."
But in a moment, while she was pondering over the affair, the vehicle came to a sudden stop, and, looking out, she saw it was standing before the wide entrance-gate of a parsonage.
"Here we are!" cried Kendal, holding out his hand to her.
"I have not said that I would marry you," she cried. "How dared you bring me here?"