"Is that final?" he asked.
"It is final."
"We shall see," sneered he. "Say what you will, I do not withdraw."
"For shame of you!" exclaimed Luke, stepping between Bessie and Fox. "If you have any good feeling in you, do not pester her with a suit that is odious to her, and after what has happened to-night, should, to yourself, be impossible."
"Oh!" jeered Fox, "you yourself proposed silence, and are bursting to let the matter escape."
"Desist," said Luke. "Desist from a pursuit that is cruel to her, and which you cannot prosecute with honour to yourself."
"I will not desist!" retorted Fox. "Tell me this. Who first sought to bring it about? Was it I? No. Magdalen Cleverdon was she who prepared it, then came the Squire himself. It's the Cleverdons who have hunted me—who try to catch me; not I who have been the hunter. You call me Fox, and you have been hue and tally ho! after me."
"There is my father!" gasped Bessie, and ran from the room. She found the old man in the passage with his candle, unlocking his sitting-room door.
"Oh, father!" she said, breathlessly, for the scene that had occurred had taken away her breath, "here is Luke come—he must see you."