-an
unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of
love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess. She knew
that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to
be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend. He had blurted
it all out roughly,--the story as told by his father of his mother's
dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened
loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,--and added his
conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a
thorough rascal. The full story of his debts he kept back, not with any
predetermined falseness, but because it is so difficult for a man to own
that he has absolutely ruined himself by his own folly. It was not
wonderful that the girl should not have understood such a story as had
then been told her. Why was he defending his mother? Why was he accusing
his father? The accusations against her uncle, whom she did know, were
more fearful to her than these mysterious charges against her aunt, whom
she did not know, from which her son defended her. But then he had
spoken passionately of his own love, and she had understood that. He had
besought her to confess that she loved him, and then she had at once
become stubborn. There was something in the word "confess" which grated
against her feelings. It seemed to imply a conviction on his part that
she did love him. She had never told him so, and was now sure that it
was not so. When he had pressed her she could only weep. But in her
weeping she never for a moment yielded. She never uttered a single word
on which he could be enabled to build a hope. Then he had become blacker
and still blacker, fiercer and still fiercer, more and more earnest in
his purpose, till at last he asked her whom it was that she loved--as she
could not love him. He knew well whom it was that he suspected;--and she
knew also. But he had no right to demand any statement from her on that
head. She did not think that the man loved her; nor did she know what to
say or to think of her own feelings. Were he, the other man, to come to
her, she would only bid him go away; but why she should so bid him she
had hardly known. But now this dark frowning captain, with his big
mustache and his military look, and his general aspect of invincible
power, threatened the other man.

"He came to Tretton as my friend," he said, "and by Heaven if he stands
in my way, if