"I will not!" came the defiant answer. "You have no right to ask such a question, and I will not answer it!"
Her defiant air and scornful words angered him. He had buoyed himself up with the hope that if he once declared his love she would be touched with the declaration, and, if she did refuse him, would do it in a kindly way that would bid him hope for better luck by and by; but to have his love flung back in his teeth, as it were, was more than his passionate nature could bear.
"Oh! so you love him, do you, and spurn me. Tell me, is it so?"
Again she stepped back from him as he was speaking, and was unaware how very near she was to the edge of the roof; but Hugh observed it, and thinking he could force a confession from her lips through fear, if by no other means, he quickly grasped her arm, saying in a voice trembling with passion:
"Do you love him? Tell me, or I'll throw you over!"
Dexie turned her head, and for one awful moment, as she realized her peril, her face blanched to her very lips; but instead of the answer Hugh expected, she raised her eyes to his, and he quailed beneath their terrible glance, as she cried:
"Throw me over then, you coward, for I'll never tell you!"
An instant they stood thus face to face, on the very edge of the roof, when Hugh's better nature asserted itself, and he quickly drew her back to safety, exclaiming hoarsely:
"Forgive me, Dexie, I never meant to do it, indeed I did not; I would not harm a hair of your dear head for a thousand worlds!"