"It was your mother?"
"I did not actually promise anything to my mother. But—I must not shrink from telling you—I have made the promise to myself, we can be nothing to each other."
"Unsay the promise at once—do you hear? At once."
"I cannot do that. I made it because I considered it right. Your father is against our—acquaintance——" She hesitated.
"Go on—he is against our being lovers, and more against our marrying. But what of that? He always gives way in the end, and now the only means of bringing him to his senses is for us to go before the altar."
"My mother, with her last breath, warned me from you."
"I know perfectly well for what reason. My mother and your father were to each other what are now you and I; then, by some chance, all went wrong, and each got wed to the wrong person. Neither was happy after that, and my father on one side and your mother on the other, could not forget this, so they have carried on the grudge to the next generation, and would make us do the wrong that they did, and give you to—the Lord knows who?—perhaps Fox Crymes; and me, certainly, to Julian. I have seen what comes of wedding where the heart is elsewhere. I will not commit the folly my father was guilty of. Julian Crymes shall take another, she shall never have me. And you, I reckon, have no fancy for another save me; and if your mother had made any scheme for you, she has taken it with her to the grave, and you are not tied to make yourself unhappy thereon."
As he spoke, Urith retreated through the gateway into the court, and Anthony, vehement in his purpose, followed her.
They were as much alone and unobserved in the little court as in the lane, for only the hall windows and those of an unused parlour looked into it. But Anthony raised his voice in his warmth of feeling. "Urith," said he, "I am not accustomed to take a No, and what I am not accustomed to I will not take."
"No!" she answered, and looked up, with a kindling of her eye. "And what I say, to that I am accustomed to hold; and what I am accustomed to hold, that hold I will. I say No." She set her foot down.