"I will not endure this, even from you. Understand at once--I deny your right to question me." The clear blue eyes met the violet ones with a steady, judicial calmness, undazzled by their ominous lightning. "Listen to me quietly--two minutes longer," he said, "and then resent my presumption as much as you will. Three years ago it pleased you to make me the subject of an experiment. How far you acted heedlessly, and in ignorance of the consequences, I have never stopped to inquire--it would be wasting time; the sophistries of coquetry are too subtle for me. I only know what the result has been. Before I met you I could have offered to any woman, who thought it worth her acceptance, a healthy, honest love; now--even if I could conquer my present infatuation--I could only offer a feeling something warmer than friendship; to promise more would be base treachery. Do you think I would stand by God's altar with a worse lie than Ananias's on my lips? Is it nothing that, to gratify your vanity or your whims, you should have condemned a man, whose blood is not frozen yet, to something worse than widowhood for life? My religion may be a false and vain idolatry; but it is all I have to trust to. I will not stand patiently by and see the image that I have bowed down to worship pilloried for the world to scorn. Now--do you deny my right to interfere?" His words had a rude energy, though little eloquence; but they came so evidently from the depths of a strong, troubled heart, that they caused a revulsion in Cecil's feelings; returning remorse bore down her stubborn pride. Very low and plaintive was the whisper--"Ah! have mercy--have mercy; you make me so unhappy;" but there came a more piteous appeal from her eyes. In Mark's stout manhood was an element of more than womanish compassion and tenderness; he never could bear to see even a child in tears; no wonder if his anger vanished before the contrition of the one being whom he loved far better than life. He lost sight of his own wrongs instantly, but _not_ of the object he had in view.