"You mistake. I have not tried to force you. I merely gave you a choice of terms," he replied.
"Scylla and Charybdis," murmured the girl, disdainfully.
"As you will," he replied; but in his heart he said, cruelly: "You find it hard, fair lady, to tolerate a master in practice, however fine it may appear in theory."
She sat still, looking dreamily into the rushing river, a look of despair frozen on her white face.
"You may have guessed why I brought you here," he said.
She made him no answer. The cold despair deepened in the lovely, downcast eyes.
"I am impatient for my answer," he went on. "Are you going to be kind to your mother, Irene; kind to yourself, and merciful to me?"
She turned and looked at him, with the fire of scorn flashing all over her beautiful face.
"If you mean am I going to sacrifice myself for my mother's sake, I answer yes," she said. "Here is my hand. Take it. But it is empty—there is no heart in it. There never will be. I shall never love you, were I twenty times your wife. I shall always hate you for driving me to the wall, for making me untrue to myself."
Unheeding her wild words he took the hand and kissed it, but she tore it madly away. It rushed over her drearily how strange it was for Guy Kenmore's widowed bride to be thus plighting her hand to another almost in the first hour of her bereavement.