"Have you anything more to say to me?" Olivia asked, turning upon her cousin as if she would have demanded why he had followed her.
"Only this: I want to know your determination; whether you will be advised by me––and by your father,––I saw my uncle Hubert this morning, and his opinion exactly coincides with mine,––or whether you mean obstinately to take your own course in defiance of everybody?"
"I do," Olivia answered. "I shall take my own course. I defy everybody. I have not been gifted with the power of winning people's affection. Other women possess that power, and trifle with it, and turn it to bad account. I have prayed, Edward Arundel,––yes, I have prayed upon my knees to the God who made me, that He would give me some poor measure of that gift which Nature has lavished upon other women; but He would not hear me, He would not hear me! I was not made to be loved. Why, then, should I make myself a slave for the sake of winning people's esteem? If they have despised me, I can despise them."
"Who has despised you, Olivia?" Edward asked, perplexed by his cousin's manner.
"YOU HAVE!" she cried, with flashing eyes; "you have! From first to last––from first to last!" She turned away from him impatiently. "Go," she said; "why should we keep up a mockery of friendliness and cousinship? We are nothing to each other."
Edward walked towards the door; but he paused upon the threshold, with his hat in his hand, undecided as to what he ought to do.
As he stood thus, perplexed and irresolute, a cry, the feeble cry of a child, sounded within the pavilion.
The young man started, and looked at his cousin. Even in the dusk he could see that her face had suddenly grown livid.
"There is a child in that place," he said pointing to the door at the top of the steps.
The cry was repeated as he spoke,––the low, complaining wail of a child. There was no other voice to be heard,––no mother's voice soothing a helpless little one. The cry of the child was followed by a dead silence.