negative dislike, I grew to
positive hate. The utter loathing and abhorrence I have had for him ever
since, began then--I grew dimly and intuitively conscious of what he
would make me, and shrank from my fate with a vague horror not to be
told in words. I became strong in my fearful dread of it. I told him I
detested, abhorred, loathed, hated him; that he might keep his riches,
greatness, and ungainly self for those who wanted him; they were
temptations too weak to move me.

"Of course, there was raving, and storming, threatening, terrible looks
and denunciations, and I quailed and shrank like a coward, but was
obstinate still. Then as a dernier resort, he tried another bribe--the
glorious one of liberty, the one he knew would conquer me, and it did.
He promised me freedom--if I married him, I might go out into the
great unknown world, fetterless and free; and I, O! fool that I was!
consented. Not that my object was to stay with him one instant longer
her my prison doors were opened; no, I was not quite so besotted as
that--once out, and the little demon might look for me with last year's
partridges. Of course, those demoniac eyes read my heart like an
open book; and when I pronounced the fatal 'yes,' he laughed in that
delightful way of his own, which will probably be the last thing you
will hear when you lay your head under the axe.

"I don't know who the clergyman who married us was; but he was a
clergyman: there can be no doubt about that. It was three days after,
and for the first time in my fifteen years of life, I stood in sunshine,
and daylight, and open air. We drove to the cathedral--for it was in St.
Paul's the sacrilege was committed. I never could have walked there,
I was so stunned, and giddy, and bewildered. I never thought of the
marriage--I could think of nothing but the bright, crashing, sun-shiny
world without, till I was led up before the clergyman, with much the
air, I suppose, of one walking in her sleep. He was a very young man, I
remember, and looked from the dwarf to me, and from me to the dwarf,
in a great state of fear and uncertainty, but evidently not daring to
refuse. Margery and one of his gang were our only attendants, and there,
in God's temple, the deed was done, and I was made the miserable thing I
am to-day."

The suppressed passion, rising and throbbing like a white flame in her
face and eyes, made her stop for a moment, breathing hard. Looking up
she met Sir Norman's gaze, and a