and her eyes filled with angry tears; "are you not ashamed to talk to
me like this, _you_, my own father's cousin, and yourself old enough
to be my father? I tell you that my love is already given, which would
have been a sufficient answer to any _gentleman_, and you reply by
saying that you are richer than the man I love. Do you believe that a
woman thinks of nothing but money? or do you suppose that I am to be
bought like a beast at the market? Get up from the ground, for, since
your brutality forces me to speak so plainly in my own defence, I must
tell you once and for all that you will get nothing by kneeling to me.
Listen: I would rather die than be your wife; rather than always see
your face about me, I would pass my life in prison; I had sooner be
touched by a snake than by you. You are quite hateful to me. Now you
have your answer, and I beg that you will get up and let me pass!"

Drawn up the full height of her majestic stature, her face flushed
with emotion, and her clear eyes flashing scornful fire, whilst in her
hand she still held the bough of sweet honeysuckle; Angela formed a
strange contrast to the miserable man crouched at her feet, swaying
himself to and fro and moaning, his hat off and his face hidden in his
trembling hands.

As he would not, or could not move, she left him there, and slipping
through a neighbouring gap vanished from sight. When she was fairly
gone, he stirred, and having risen and recovered his hat, which had
fallen off in his excitement, his first action was to shake his fist
in the direction in which she had vanished, his next to frantically
kiss the fragment of her dress that he still held in her hand.

"You _shall_ marry me yet, my fine lady," he hissed between his teeth;
"and, if I do not repay your gentle words with interest, my name is
not George Caresfoot;" and then, staggering like a drunken man, he
made his way home.

"Oh, Arthur," thought Angela, as she crept quite broken in spirit to
the solitude of her room, "if I only knew where you were, I think that
I would follow you, promise or no promise. There is no one to help me,
no one; they are all in league against me--even my own father."

CHAPTER XXXIX

Notwithstanding his brave threats made behind Angela's back, about
forcing her to marry him in the teeth of any opposition that she could
offer, George reached home that night very much disheartened about the
whole business. How was he