into the chair that stood next the door, and, sticking his hands into
his breeches-pockets, glared at my lady, his face flushed and sombre.

'Hoity-toity! are these manners?' said she. 'Do you see this reverend
gentleman?'

'Ay, and G--d--him!' cried Mr. Dunborough, with a very strong
expletive; 'but I'll make him smart for it by-and-by. You have ruined me
among you.'

'Saved you, you mean,' said Lady Dunborough with complacency, 'if you
are worth saving--which, mind you, I very much doubt, Dunborough.'

'If I had seen her last night,' he answered, drawing a long breath, 'it
would have been different. For that I have to thank you two. You sent me
to lie at Bath and thought you had got rid of me. But I am back, and
I'll remember it, my lady! I'll remember you too, you lying sneak!'

'You common, low fellow!' said my lady.

'Ay, talk away!' said he; and then no more, but stared at the floor
before him, his jaw set, and his brow as black as a thunder-cloud. He
was a powerful man, and, with that face, a dangerous man. For he was
honestly in love; the love was coarse, brutal, headlong, a passion to
curse the woman who accepted it; but it was not the less love for that.
On the contrary, it was such a fever as fills the veins with fire and
drives a man to desperate things; as was proved by his next words.

'You have ruined me among you,' he said, his tone dull and thick, like
that of a man in drink. 'If I had seen her last night, there is no
knowing but what she would have had me. She would have jumped at it. You
tell me why not! But she is different this morning. There is a change in
her. Gad, my lady,' with a bitter laugh, 'she is as good a lady as you,
and better! And I'd have used her gently. Now I shall carry her off. And
if she crosses me I will wring her handsome neck!'

It is noticeable that he did not adduce any reason why the night had
changed her. Only he had got it firmly into his head that, but for the
delay they had caused, all would be well. Nothing could move him
from this.

'Now I shall run away with her,' he repeated.

'She won't go with you,' my lady cried with scorn.

'I sha'n't ask her,' he answered. 'When there is no choice she will come
to it. I tell you I shall carry her off. And if I am taken and hanged
for it, I'll be hanged at Papworth--before your window.'

'You poor simpleton!' she said. 'Go home to your father.'

'All right, my lady,' he answered, without lifting his eyes from the