Like one startled from a dream, she looked up and saw him holding her in that strong clasp, gazing into her face with a passion that frightened her. She tore herself from his arms.
"How dared you? oh, how dared you?" she cried out, indignantly.
Her angry words, her scornful glance, chilled the fire that burned within him. He realized his folly. Why had he touched her, frightened her, and so broken the spell of enchantment that held her? She would never forgive him, perhaps, for his temerity.
"Did you think, because you were my Lord Lancaster, forsooth, and I only the housekeeper's niece, that you could insult me thus?"
Her voice broke cold and sharp on the stillness. The nightingales had all flown away at the first sound of her angry tones.
"Insult you?" cried the culprit, agitatedly; he was too much shocked at the result of his hasty act to speak calmer. "Believe me, Miss West, I meant no insult. I did not think that you would take it so."
His words were unfortunate. They irritated Leonora even more.
"You did not think so?" she cried, gazing reproachfully at him. "And, pray, sir, what cause had I given you to—to think that your caresses could be agreeable to me?"
He stood gazing at her in silence.
If he told her the real truth—told her that the face in the Magic Mirror had fooled him with its soft eyes and tender lips, and led him on to the commission of that impulsive act—she would be more angry than ever. She would deny that her own looks had tempted him, made a fool of him. He would not stoop to exculpate himself from the anger of one so manifestly unjust.