His cheeks quivered, his lips trembled, his voice swelled, his nervous fingers were riveted to his palm. He approached her and took her hand. She seemed to be benumbed by strong feeling. She had stood as one transfixed, a slow paralysis of surprise laying hold of her faculties. But at his touch her senses regained their mastery. She flung away his hand. Her breast heaved. In a voice charged with indignation, she said: "So this is what you mean! I understand you at last!" Huge Ritson fell back a pace. "Greta, hear me--hear me again!" But she had found her voice indeed. "Sir, you have outraged your brother's heart as surely as if at this moment I had been your brother's wife!" "Greta, think before you speak--think, I implore you!" "I have thought! I have thought of you as your sister might think, and spoken to you as my brother. Now I know how mean of soul you are!" Hugh broke in passionately: "For God's sake, stop! I am an unforgiving man." His nostrils quivered, every nerve vibrated. "Love? You never loved. If you knew what the word means you would die of shame where you stand this instant." Hugh lost all control. "I bid you beware!" he said in wrath and dismay. "And I bid you be silent!" said Greta, with an eloquent uplifting of the hand. "You offer your love to a pledged woman. It is only base love that is basely offered. It is bad coin, sir, and goes back dishonored." Hugh Ritson regained some self-command. The contractions were deep about his forehead, but he answered in an imperturbable voice: "You shall never marry my brother!" "I will--God willing!" "Then you shall marry him to your lifelong horror and disgrace." "That shall be as Heaven may order." "A boor--a hulking brute--a bas--" "Enough! I would rather marry a plowboy than such a gentleman as you!" Face to face, eye to eye, with panting breath and scornful looks, there they stood for one moment. Then Greta swung about and walked down the lonnin. Hugh Ritson's natural manner returned instantly. He looked after her without the change of a feature, and then turned quietly into the house. CHAPTER VI. There was a drowsy calm in the room where Mr. Bonnithorne sat at lunch. It was the little oak-bound parlor to the right, in which he had begun the conversation with old Allan Ritson that had been interrupted by the announcement of the Laird Fisher. Half of the window was thrown up, and the landscape framed by the sash lay still as a picture. The sun that had passed over Grisedale sent a deep glow from behind, and the woods beneath took a restful tone. Only the mountain-head was white where it towered into the sky and the silence.