"Release me, this moment, Colonel Carlyle! If you dare to persevere in such a cowardly and brutal course, I swear to you that I will never live with you another day! Yes, I would leave you within the hour were I twice your wife!" cried the girl, in such passionate wrath and scorn that the colonel let go of her hand in sheer surprise at the transformation of his dove.
"You would not dare do such a thing!" he exclaimed, vehemently.
"Would I not?" she answered, with flashing eyes. "I dare do anything! Beware how you put me to the test!"
He stood glaring at her with rage and malignity distorting his aristocratic features. How dared that feeble, puny girl defy him thus?
For a moment he almost hated her. A sleeping devil was aroused within his heart.
"Bonnibel," he exclaimed, angrily, "you shall repent this hour in dust and ashes!"
All the latent fire and scorn of the girl's passionate nature were fanned into flame by his threatening words.
"I care nothing for your threat," she answered, haughtily. "I defy you to do your worst! Such threats do honor to your manhood when addressed to a weak and helpless girl! See how little I prize the gift of one who could act in so unmanly a way."
She stooped and caught up his ring where it had fallen on the sands in all its shining beauty. She made a step forward towards the water, her white hand flashed in the air a moment, and the costly jewel fell shimmering into the sea.
They stood a moment looking at each other in silence—the girl reckless, defiant, like a young lioness at bay; the man astonished, indignant, yet still thrilled with a sort of inexpressible admiration of her beauty and her daring. He saw in her that moment some of the dauntless courage of her hero-father. The same proud, untamed spirit flashed from her glorious eyes. It flashed across him suddenly and humiliatingly that he had been a fool to try such high-handed measures with General Vere's daughter—he might have known that the same unconquerable fire burned in her veins. He had seen Harry Vere go into the battle with the same look on his face—the same flashing eye, the same dilated nostril and disdainful lip.