Jameson drew back, and for the instant his countenance evinced genuine emotion. His self-love was cruelly shocked by the evident loathing with which she shrunk away from the arm that, only a few days before, had brought the bright blood into her cheeks did she but rest her hand upon it by accident. "And do you hate me so, Florence?" he said, in a voice that was full of keen feeling. "Leave me--leave me, I am ill!" cried the poor girl, sitting up on the sofa, and holding a hand to her forehead, as if she were suffering great pain. "_I_ come by your father's permission, Florence; will you be more cruel than he is?" "My father has a right to punish me, I have deserved it," she said, in a voice of painful humility. "If he sent you I will try to bear it." "Oh, Florence, has it come to this; I am about to leave you forever, and yet you shrink from me as if I were a reptile," cried Jameson. "A reptile! oh, no, they seldom sting unless trodden upon," said Florence, lifting her large eyes to his face for the first time, but withdrawing them instantly, and with a faint moan. Jameson turned from her and paced the room once or twice with uneven strides. This seemed to give Florence more strength, for the closeness of his presence had absolutely oppressed her with a sense of suffocation. She sat upright, and putting the hair back from her temples, tried to collect her thoughts. Jameson broke off his walk and turned toward her; but she prevented his nearer approach with a motion of her hand, and spoke with some degree of calmness. "You have sought me, but why? What more do you wish? Do I not seem wretched enough?" "It is your father who has made you thus miserable!" said Jameson, in a low but bitter voice, for he feared the proud man in the next room, and dared not speak of him aloud. Florence scarcely heeded him, she sat gazing on the floor lost in thought, painful and harrowing. Still there was an apparent apathy about her that reassured the bad man who stood by suffering all the agony of a wild animal baffled in fight. He would not believe that so short a time had deprived him of a love so passionate, so self-sacrificing as had absorbed that young being not three days before. Throwing a tone of passionate tenderness into his voice, he approached her, this time unchecked. "Florence, dear Florence, must we part thus; will you send me from you for ever?" Florence, was very weak and faint, she felt by the thrill that went through her heart like some sharp instrument, as the sound of his passionate entreaty fell upon it, that, spite of herself, she might be made powerless in his hands were the interview to proceed. The thought filled her with dread. She started up, and tottering a step or two from the sofa, cried out, "Father! father!"