“Yes, yes, I realize your power for good and evil in this place, and I entreat you as you are strong be merciful!” she faltered, pointing steadfastly at the door.
He laughed softly.
“I was only jesting with you! I love you too well, sweet little Eva, to harm you. Forget what I said, since you scorn my proffered kindness, and let us be friends again. Will you shake hands and forgive?”
“No, no—but I shall scream unless you leave the room instantly!” she exclaimed, with rising anger at his obstinacy, every maidenly instinct taking alarm at his presence there in her private room at night.
“Do not scream, I am going,” he started across the room, then smiled back at her:
“Just one kiss, little Eva. I am a lonely man with no one to love me.”
“You have a wife and children,” she reminded him, so cuttingly that he withdrew with a muttered imprecation, and Eva flew at the door, slammed and locked it in a fury, and sank sobbing into a chair.
“The wretch! Surely he meant to insult me! There was more than fatherly kindness in his eyes. There was wickedness! Oh, I hate him—I will not stay here! I will go away to-morrow!” she sobbed in a passion of anger and misery, wondering where under heaven she could go unless it were back to kind old Goody Brown.
She wondered what Doctor Rupert would say when he came and found her gone.
“He will wonder if I ran away from his love,” she sobbed, and just then came a low tapping on the door, and she sprang upright, shivering.