"That's all very well, Christabel, but a man's feelings are not so entirely within his control as you seem to suppose. Do you think I shall ever forget how you threw me over for a fellow you had only known a week or so--and now, when I tell you how, from my boyhood, I have relied upon your being my wife--always kept you in my mind as the one only woman who was to bear my name, and sit at the head of my table, you coolly inform me that it can never be? You would rather go wandering about the world with a hired companion----" "Jessie is not a hired companion--she is my very dear friend." "You choose to call her so--but she came to Mount Royal in answer to an advertisement, and my mother pays her wages, just like the housemaids. You would rather roam about with Jessie Bridgeman, getting yourself talked about at every table d'hôte in Europe--a prey for every Captain Deuceace, or Loosefish, on the Continent--than you would be my wife, and mistress of Mount Royal." "Because nearly a year ago I made up my mind never to be any man's wife, Leonard," answered Christabel, gravely. "I should hate myself if I were to depart from that resolve." "You mean that when you broke with Mr. Hamleigh you did not think there was any one in the world good enough to stand in his shoes," said Leonard, savagely. "And for the sake of a man who turned out so badly that you were obliged to chuck him up, you refuse a fellow who has loved you all his life." Christabel turned her horse's head, and went homewards at a sharp trot, leaving Leonard, discomfited, in the middle of the lane. He had nothing to do but to trot meekly after her, afraid to go too fast, lest he should urge her horse to a bolt, and managing at last to overtake her at the bottom of a hill. "Do find some grass somewhere, so that we may get a canter," she said; and her cousin knew that there was to be no more conversation that morning. CHAPTER V. "BUT HERE IS ONE WHO LOVES YOU AS OF OLD."