"If that is all you came for, you may go," she answers, icily. "I shall never be nearer to you than I am at this moment. I should never have confessed my secret, I should never have claimed you, whom I hate and scorn, for my husband, but that it was the only way to keep my oath of vengeance to my dying father. But I have done with you now. The greatest kindness you can show me, Leslie Noble, is never to let me see your hated face again on earth."
Leslie Noble's face grows dark with passion and shame. To be defied and scorned by this beautiful girl is something that would make most men cower and feel humiliated, and though this man has had the most of his finer feelings dulled and blunted by his life with the Clevelands, still some faint instinct of shame stirs in him at her words and looks. But rage overpowers it.
"In your supreme scorn for me, Lady Fairvale, you seem to lose sight of one stubborn fact," he answers, in low, menacing tones. "I have been humbly pleading with you for what I may lawfully claim as my right."
"Your right!" she echoes, retreating toward the door as if she could not bear another word.
"Yes, my right," he answers, following and placing himself between her and the door. "Do not go, Lady Fairvale; stay and hear me out. You are my wife; your place is in my home and by my side. What is there to hinder me from taking possession of you?"
There is a dull menace in his look and tone, but Lady Vera's high courage does not falter.
"Would you attempt such a thing against my will?" she inquires, fixing on him the scornful gaze of her proud, dark eyes.
"I have fallen in love with you, Vera, I would dare much before I would give up the hope of winning your heart in return," he answers, doggedly.
The angry color flames into her cheeks.
"Then you are simply mad," she answers. "Have I not told you that I hate and despise you, and that I hope never to see your face again after this hour? Were you the last man on earth, I should never give you even one kind thought."