"`I tell you this,' he says, shouting again; and hearing his words, you could almost see him stamping up and down the breakfast-room--`I tell you this. Mrs Brandon: the ties of duty are strong, but the ties formed by the heart of a man newly-awakened to love are stronger. To win Ella Bedford, my own love, I will give all--time, hope, everything; I will leave no stone unturned--I will stop at nothing! I see that she has been coerced--that she has been, as it were, cruelly stolen from me by external pressure; and it shall be my task to win her back. I had hoped to have had you on my side; as it is, I must begin my battle by myself. I thank you for your patient hearing of my words; but before I go I tell you this--that _till I learn that, by her own act, she gives herself to another_, I will never cease from my pursuit.' "The next minute he was in the hall, and I handed him his hat, brushed as he never had it brushed before; when, even then, upset as he was, he puts his hand in his pocket, and pushed something into my fist. "`Sixpence,' I says to myself, as I shut the door after him, and him a-walking away like mad." "Sixpence!" echoed the cook. "Sixpence!" squeaked the housemaid. "Well, it did feel like it, sutternly," said Edward; "but it was arf a suffrin'." "But what did he mean by never ceasing from the pursuit till she gave herself to another? Would she give herself to another?" said cook, who was very moist of eye. "No, I should say not--never!" said the housemaid. And so said, mentally, Charley Vining as, disappointed and half maddened, he galloped homeward that afternoon; but the day came when, bitterly laughing to himself, he said otherwise, and hummed with aching heart the words of the old song: "Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair?" And then he turned over and over in his hand--what? A wedding-ring! Volume 2, Chapter XII. MORE PASSION AND LITTLE PROGRESS. "Bai Jove! she's about the most skittish little filly I ever met with in the whole course of my experience," muttered Max Bray; and then he went over mentally the many rebuffs he had encountered. Forbidden Mrs Brandon's house, he had all the same gone over day after day to Laneton, for the purpose of impressing Ella with a sense of the value of his attentions; but still, though he displayed as much effrontery as a London rough, all went against him, and he found that, so far from meeting with a kindly greeting, his appearance was ever the signal for an immediate retreat. "But you won't tire me--bai Jove, you won't!" said Max. "I've set my mind, and it will keep set." And still day after day he rode over to Laneton, till not a walk could Ella take without catching sight of his mincing step and gracefully-attired figure; while, in spite of every effort, there were times when she could not avoid his addresses, as he stubbornly persisted in walking by her side.