"Oh!" cried Kitty, "I believe you'd order him to marry me, and thrash him if he refused!"
"I'd see that he did it!" said Jack, with the same savage earnestness.
A silence fell upon them; Kitty's thoughts seemed to grow more distressful, for now and again she sighed; Jack stared out of the window, and watched the deepening twilight blacken the park; it seemed to him that this confession of Kitty's was so blackening his life; the night was settling down upon it.
"Jack—do you—do you remember—about two years ago—you stopped kissing me. Why—why did you do it?" said Kitty, softly; she seemed to have wandered from the point. He turned to her; the glow of the fire alone lit the room now; and she was sitting full in it. Her face was still pale.
"Oh," he said, in discomfort, "you weren't a child any more. And you were a great heiress—and I was your friend and guardian—and all that sort of thing, don't you know!"
"Poor Jack! You're very poor, aren't you, Jack?"
"No, I'm not! I'm rolling in riches! I've four hundred a year!" said Jack, bitterly. "Besides, there's the Colonial Land Agency; I made twenty pounds out of that last year."
"What's four hundred a year with your tastes?" queried Kitty.