"Such as what, if you please?" inquired Edith, still unmoved.
"That remains to be seen; but I warn you that you are bringing only wrath upon your own head. We shall never allow you to create a scandal—we shall find a way to compel you to do as we wish."
"That you can never do!" and the beautiful girl proudly faced the woman with such an undaunted air and look that she involuntarily quailed before her. "It is my nature," she went on, after a slight pause, "to be gentle and yielding in all things reasonable, and when I am kindly treated; but injustice and treachery, such as you have been guilty of, always arouse within me a spirit which a thousand like you and your brother could never bend nor break."
"Do not be too sure, my pretty young Tartar," retorted madam, with a disagreeable sneer.
"I rejected Monsieur Correlli's proposals to me some weeks ago," Edith resumed, without heeding the rude interruption. "I made him clearly understand, and you also, that I could never marry him. You appeared to accept the situation only to scheme for my ruin; but, even though you have tricked me into compromising myself in the presence of many witnesses, it was only a trick, and therefore no legal marriage. At least I do not regard myself as morally bound; and, as I have said before, I shall appeal to the courts to annul whatever tie there may be supposed to exist. This is my irrevocable decision—nothing can change it—nothing will ever swerve me a hair's breadth from it. Go tell your brother, and then let me alone—I will never renew the subject with either of you."
And as Edith ceased she turned her resolute face to the window, and Anna Goddard knew that she had meant every word that she had uttered.
She was amazed by this show of spirit and decision.
The girl had always been a perfect model of gentleness and kindness, ready to do whatever was required of her, obliging and invariably sweet-tempered.
She could hardly realize that the cold, determined, defiant, undaunted sentences to which she had just listened could have fallen from the lips of the mild, quiet Edith whom she had hitherto known.
But, as may be imagined, such an attitude from one who had been a servant to her was not calculated to soothe her ruffled feelings, and after the first flash of astonishment, anger got the better of her.