Ida, who had never looked more beautiful than she did in this moment of passion, turned to seat herself, but the tension of her feelings and the torrent of her wrath and eloquence had been too much for her. She would have fallen had not Harold, who had been listening amazed to this overpowering outburst of nature, run up and caught her in his arms. As for Edward Cossey, he had shrunk back involuntarily beneath the volume of her scorn, till he stood with his back against the panelled wall. His face was white as a sheet; despair and fury shone in his dark eyes. Never had he desired this woman more fiercely than he did now, in the moment when he knew that she had escaped him for ever. In a sense he was to be pitied, for passion tore his heart in twain. For a moment he stood thus. Then with a spring rather than a step, he advanced across the room till he was face to face with Harold, who, with Ida still half fainting in his arms, and her head upon his shoulder, was standing on the further side of the fire-place. “Damn you,” he said, “I owe this to you—you half-pay adventurer,” and he lifted his arm as though to strike him. “Come, none of that,” said the Squire, speaking for the first time. “I will have no brawling here.” “No,” put in George, edging his long form between the two, “and begging your pardon, sir, don’t you go a-calling of better men than yourself adwenturers. At any rate, if the Colonel is an adwenturer, he hev adwentured to some purpose, as is easy for to see,” and he pointed to Ida. “Hold your tongue, sir,” roared the Squire, as usual relieving his feelings on his retainer. “You are always shoving your oar in where it isn’t wanted.” “All right, Squire, all right,” said George the imperturbable; “thin his manners shouldn’t be sich.” “Do you mean to allow this?” said Cossey, turning fiercely to the old gentleman. “Do you mean to allow this man to marry your daughter for her money?” “Mr. Cossey,” answered the Squire, with his politest and most old-fashioned bow, “whatever sympathy I may have felt for you is being rapidly alienated by your manner. I told you that my daughter must speak for herself. She has spoken very clearly indeed, and, in short, I have absolutely nothing to add to her words.”