He was nettled by her glance, and by the manner of her speech.
“It is easy to see,” he said, “that you have fled from your brother to form some connection of which you were convinced beforehand he would not approve, and that you still fear to face him by striving to keep your abode secret from him, or you are under the command to do so of the base, the contemptible, the—sneaking, the—the d——d scoundrel who has cajoled you into taking the most unhappy course you have adopted.”
He looked round fiercely, and spoke loudly, as though he anticipated the individual he had loaded with such strong epithets would step forth to answer for himself.
Lotte became as white as a sheet, and trembled in every limb. Her lips quivered so that she could not speak; but she pointed to the door with a frantic gesture, as if bidding him begone.
“No!” he said, with an angry frown on his flushed brow, “I shall not begone until I have seen the rascal who has so grossly deceived you. He shall well explain the motives which have led him to induce you to descend to such unworthy artifices——”
“Hold!” almost shrieked Lotte, as unconsciously she pressed Helen’s child to her bosom; an act he noted almost with fury. “How dare you thus speak to me?—I—I—Mr. Wilton—I would, out of the reverence in which I hold your gentle sister, for the benefits she has conferred on me—speak to you with respect—but this outrage—this attack upon me drives me from myself. I did not expect to be thus cruelly insulted—by—by you.”
A gush of tears checked further utterance, and her voice dropped at the last word.
Truly in her day-dreams she had never pictured his face turned upon her with an expression so harsh as that which now it bore; and when in her imaginings his voice breathed its soft, melodious accents in her ear, it had no such tone as this. Mark felt his breast aflame, when he saw her weep, and heard the acknowledgment implied in the reference to himself. He would have given worlds, even at that moment, to have been enabled to have folded his arms tenderly round her, and kissed away those tears, which he had himself brought into her sweet eyes.
But there was the little child, yet close hugged to her bosom. If she were a wife, he had, he felt, been scandalously cozened out of a priceless treasure; if she dare lay claim to no such title, he could never think of her more—unless to loathe her very name.
He assumed a cold manner, although his breast was as a seething caldron, and recommenced.