‘Look here, Rodley. If I did my duty, I should give you a thrashing on the spot. Just be off.—Miss West is betrothed to me. That’s enough. Do you hear?’
Jasper Rodley walked off, with a savage scowl on his face and an imprecation on his lips.
‘O Harry dear!’ cried the girl, who was trembling with fright, ‘I’m so glad you didn’t fight.’
‘Fight with a cur like that!’ exclaimed Harry. ‘Men of his kidney don’t fight.—What has he been saying to you, my darling?’
‘Oh, such terrible things, Harry! He says that he will marry me whether I like it or not—that father is in his power, and has consented; and that I had better make up my mind to give you up before it is too late.’
‘Why, what on earth can he mean? Your father in the power of a rascal like that—to consent to your marrying him! He’s only trying to frighten you. And yet you say that you have seen him with your father. I think I shall tackle Mr Jasper at once and make him explain his dark speeches. There’s one thing—I’m not going to have him continue his tormenting of you, whether your father is in his power or not.—And now, good-bye, dearest; you’re safe now.’
So the girl pursued her homeward road; and Harry Symonds walked rapidly back into the town. Just within the gate, he came up with Jasper Rodley. ‘Rodley,’ he said, ‘I’m going to the office to give an excuse for my absence. Kindly wait here until I come back, as I want to speak to you.’
‘If you want to speak to me, you’d better do so at once; I’ve other things to attend to, and I’m not going to hang about here waiting for you.’
‘Very well, then,’ said Harry; ‘let’s go where people can’t remark us. Here, we’ll turn on to the ramparts.’
So they went along the pleasant walk which ran upon what had been, in old, stirring times, the walls of Saint Quinians, a broad path, bounded by shrubs and trees on one side, and by the deep stony ditch on the other.