"Impossible! Why, Lucy, your aunt tells me that she means to continue in this establishment. How can you reconcile it to yourself to remain here, with the peril of encountering the associations, such as we have already known them, which seem naturally to belong to such a border region."
"You forget, Ralph, that it was here I met with you," was the sudden reply, with a faint smile upon her lips.
"Yes; and I was driven here—by a fate, against my will—that we should meet, Lucy. But though we are both here, now, the region is unseemly to both, and neither need remain an hour longer than it is agreeable. Why should you remain out of your sphere, and exposed to every sort of humiliating peril."
"You forget—my aunt."
"Ay, but what security is there that she will not give you another uncle?"
"Oh, fie, Ralph!"
"Ay, she is too feeble of will, too weak, to be independent. She will marry again, Lucy, and is not the woman to choose wisely. Besides, she is not your natural aunt. She is so by marriage only. The tie between you is one which gives her no proper claim upon you."
"She has been kind to me, Ralph."
"Yet she would have seen you sacrificed to this outlaw!"
Lucy shuddered. He continued:—