He trembled violently, as if struggling with his love of her, and something mental seemed for a minute to load or fetter his tongue till he said, in a low voice, 'If I can prove that I have the right to ask you, will you marry me--will you be my wife, Laura?' 'Do not ask me,' she replied, trembling in turn. 'Why--why?' he asked, impetuously. 'Are you aware how strangely you prelude your proposal by referring to some eventuality, Captain Dalton?' said she, with some hauteur; 'but be assured that I can never be more to you than I am now, were I to live a hundred years.' 'And so you are but a cruel coquette after all,' said Dalton, recovering himself; 'one who has fooled me--a man of the world, as I deemed myself--to the top of my bent, only to throw me over at last. Well, perhaps I am rightly served,' he added, bitterly. 'You _are_ rightly served, Captain Dalton,' said she, laughing once more. 'What do you know--what do you mean?' 'What your own heart tells you; but here is a visitor, Bella Chevenix; let us at least part friends.' 'Mere friends we can never be,' said he, sadly. 'As you please, Captain Dalton; but be assured we have not seen the last of each other yet,' she replied, with one of her most brilliant and coquettish smiles, as he bowed himself out; and so ended an interview which both felt had included the most singular bit of love-making they had ever been involved in. 'By Jove, she is an enigma,' muttered Dalton; but she had no such thought of _him_. CHAPTER XIV. 'SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN!' 'Captain Goring, let it be distinctly understood that from this day forward your visits to Chilcote cease, and let all this be forgotten,' were the words with which Sir Ranald accosted Goring one forenoon. 'Forgotten!' exclaimed the latter, rising from his seat, hat in hand. Sir Ranald had suddenly come in and found him seated with Alison, paying one of his usual visits, as Goring wished them to be thought, and the old man was greatly ruffled, even exasperated. 'As for my daughter, sir, I forbid her to speak to you again, to recognise you anywhere, to mention your name, or even think of you!' he continued, with increasing vehemence, lashing himself to fresh anger with the sound of his own words. 'D--n it, sir, in my younger days the pistol would have put an effectual stop to your uncalled-for interloping.' 'Or yours, and your coldness of heart,' replied Goring, who was so confounded by this sudden outburst of wrath as scarcely to know what he said. He was naturally a proud-spirited young fellow, and rather prompt to ire. He blushed scarlet to the temples at these most affronting speeches; but they gave him double pain when he saw the wan, blanched, and imploring face of poor Alison, whose heart was wrung by the words and bearing of her father--a bearing all so unlike his own usually cold, stately, and aristocratic self.