"Have I no authority?" quoth the dwarf. "Listen to me--you must--you shall--if it kill you in your heroics. I am your husband--my authority is law. I can command you to my foot, and you must obey me. You think you are secure; but I will show you that you have committed an egregious mistake. Believe me," he added, in a tone of supercilious mockery, for which I could have inflicted summary chastisement--"believe me, you only deceive yourself, as you have tried to deceive me." "In what have I tried to deceive you?" she demanded. "I have been so explicit with you, that none but the most contemptible of your sex would have persisted at such a sacrifice of pride and feeling. Pride? You have none. Where you proffered love--oh! such love!--you found aversion;--where you sought, sued, and threatened, you received nothing in return but loathing and scorn. And now, henceforth and forever, I break all bonds between us. Since you will not do it, I will--I _have_ done it! Obey you? I owe you no obedience. Be wise; take my answer, and leave me." "Not at your bidding, madam. I did not come here to visit you in your retirement, and be turned away so unceremoniously. It is not my intention to leave you. Where you are, there must I be too." The insolent coolness with which this was spoken, rendered it very difficult for me to submit to the injunction Astræa had imposed upon me. I began to feel that _I_, too, had rights, and that the course this husband-in-law was pursuing, was not the best calculated to induce me to surrender them. "Where I am you shall never come again!" returned Astræa. "That is over. A gulf yawns between us. Do not tempt it any further." "I will not be critical about words with you," said the dwarf. "If I am not to come where you are, you shall come to me. It is the same thing. You are only wasting your fine speeches. I have come here to take you back to London." "To take me back?" she echoed. "Are you mad? Do you believe such a thing credible? I have chosen my own course; and no power, authority, or force can turn me from it. Take me back! Even were I willing to go--suppose I were weak enough to repent the step I have taken--can you not see--have you not eyes and understanding to see and comprehend, that it would be to your own eternal dishonor--that it would only bring upon you the contempt and derision of the world?" "It is for me to judge of that. Come--we are losing time, and it is growing dark already." "Then why do you stay? Why do you not go as you came. I have given you my answer; and if you were to stand here forever, you will get none other. Have you no particle of self-respect left?"