“You may place, madam, what interpretation you please upon my language; and I am equally at liberty to interpret your conduct.——”
“I deny your right to do any such thing!” she interrupted, vehemently; “you are here unbidden sir. If you bear a message from my brother to me, I ask of you only to deliver it to me—and to leave me; if you have no such message, I request you to depart at once?”
“But——” exclaimed Mark, as if to explain.
“I will hear from you, sir, nothing more than my brother’s words, if you have been entrusted with them,” persisted Lotte, indignantly.
“You shall have them,” said Mark, in a freezing tone; “still, I imagined, as a friend——
“A friend!” echoed Lotte, bitterly.
“A friend!” roared Mark, with a rather startling emphasis, forgetting his assumed coldness.
“I loved and esteemed your sister, sir, as a friend,” exclaimed Lotte, in a tone of earnest feeling. She bit her lips to repress the sob that gushed up to her throat—-“but you——”
“I am answered!” he exclaimed in a low tone as she paused. “I had a weak and foolish fancy that—but it is dissipated, gone—for ever. I see now I stand but in the light of a meddlesome intruder, and have no title to ask from you any explanation of your mysterious conduct.”
“None whatever!” said Lotte firmly.