"Would I not?" she answered, with flashing eyes. "I dare do anything! Beware how you put me to the test!" He stood glaring at her with rage and malignity distorting his aristocratic features. How dared that feeble, puny girl defy him thus? For a moment he almost hated her. A sleeping devil was aroused within his heart. "Bonnibel," he exclaimed, angrily, "you shall repent this hour in dust and ashes!" All the latent fire and scorn of the girl's passionate nature were fanned into flame by his threatening words. "I care nothing for your threat," she answered, haughtily. "I defy you to do your worst! Such threats do honor to your manhood when addressed to a weak and helpless girl! See how little I prize the gift of one who could act in so unmanly a way." She stooped and caught up his ring where it had fallen on the sands in all its shining beauty. She made a step forward towards the water, her white hand flashed in the air a moment, and the costly jewel fell shimmering into the sea. They stood a moment looking at each other in silence--the girl reckless, defiant, like a young lioness at bay; the man astonished, indignant, yet still thrilled with a sort of inexpressible admiration of her beauty and her daring. He saw in her that moment some of the dauntless courage of her hero-father. The same proud, untamed spirit flashed from her glorious eyes. It flashed across him suddenly and humiliatingly that he had been a fool to try such high-handed measures with General Vere's daughter--he might have known that the same unconquerable fire burned in her veins. He had seen Harry Vere go into the battle with the same look on his face--the same flashing eye, the same dilated nostril and disdainful lip. He went up to her, thrilled with momentary compunction for his fault, and took her hand in his. "You were right, Bonnibel," he said, humbly. "I acted like a coward and a brute. I was driven mad by jealousy. Can you forgive me, darling?" "I accept your apology, sir," she answered, coldly; but there was little graciousness and much pride in her manner. Her pride had been outraged almost past forgiveness. CHAPTER XIX. Colonel Carlyle keeps the peace for several days. He finds that he has overstepped the mark and that it will take careful management to regain his lost ground in his wife's regard. Bonnibel, though she married him without a spark of love, has yet given him a very frank and tender regard and esteem until now. She has always thought him a perfect gentleman, a model of courtesy and propriety, and as such she has given him all that was left in her heart to give--the reverence and affection of a dutiful daughter. Now, without a moment's warning, her ideal has fallen from the proud pedestal where she had placed it--its shattered fragments bestrewed the ground, and _she_ knows, if he does not, that the broken image can never be restored.