iolence?' Lizzie
Hexam demanded with spirit.

He bit his lip, and looked at her, and said never a word.

'Was it Mr Wrayburn that you threatened?'

He bit his lip again, and looked at her, and said never a word.

'You asked me to hear you out, and you will not speak. Let me find my
brother.'

'Stay! I threatened no one.'

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it to
his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and again folded it over the other.
'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' he repeated.

'Why do you mention that name again and again, Mr Headstone?'

'Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! There
are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop me, and fasten it upon
me. Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name,
could hardly have escaped him.

'He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough to
listen to HIM. I know it, as well as he does.'

'Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,' said Lizzie,
proudly, 'in connexion with the death and with the memory of my poor
father.'

'No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, Mr
Eugene Wrayburn.'

'He is nothing to you, I think,' said Lizzie, with an indignation she
could not repress.

'Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.'

'What can he be to you?'

'He can be a rival to me among other things,' said Bradley.

'Mr Headstone,' returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is cowardly in
you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you that
I do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and
that no other living creature has anything to do with the effect you
have produced upon me for yourself.'

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked up
again, moistening his lips. 'I was going on with the little I had left
to say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayburn, all the while you were
drawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It
made no difference in me. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went
on. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With Mr
Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast
out.'

'If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposal
and declining it, is it my fault, Mr Headstone?' said Lizzie,
compassionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, al