"Take your time," he said gently. "It's all
right, you know--all right."
"Thank you," she whispered. "Well, I saw him. He was in a dangerous--a
wild-beast mood. He told me I needn't try to run away any longer, for I
was caught. He said--and I know it was true--that he had obtained my
mother's full approval and consent. He swore that he wouldn't leave me
until I promised to marry him. He was terrible, with a sort of
suppressed violence that appalled me. I tried not to let him see how
terrified I was. I kept quite quiet and temperate for a long time. I
told him I could never, never marry him. And each time I said it, he
smiled and showed his teeth. He was like a tiger. His eyes were
fiendish. But he, too, kept quiet for ever so long. He tried persuasion,
he tried flattery. Oh, it was loathsome--loathsome! And then quite
suddenly he turned savage, and--and threatened me."
She glanced nervously into Rivington's face, but it told her nothing. He
looked merely thoughtful.
She went on more quietly.
"That drove me desperate, and I exclaimed, hardly thinking, 'I wouldn't
marry you if you were the only man in the world--which you are not!'
'Oh!' he said at once. 'There is another man, is there?' He didn't seem
to have thought that possible. And I--I was simply clutching at
straws--I told him 'Yes.' It was a lie, you know--the first deliberate
lie I think I have ever told since I came to years of discretion.
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