He stopped. For once, even Regina showed that she had spirit enough to be angry. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself to speak to me in that way!” she broke out indignantly. “If you have no better opinion of me than that, I won’t marry you at all--no, not if you had fifty thousand a year, sir, to-morrow! Am I to have no sense of duty to my uncle--to the good man who has been a second father to me? Do you think I am ungrateful enough to set his wishes at defiance? Oh yes, I know you don’t like him! I know that a great many people don’t like him. That doesn’t make any difference to Me! But for dear uncle Farnaby, I might have gone to the workhouse, I might have been a starving needlewoman, a poor persecuted maid-of-all-work. Am I to forget that, because you have no patience, and only think of yourself? Oh, I wish I had never met with you! I wish I had never been fool enough to be as fond of you as I am!” With that confession, she turned her back on him, and took refuge in her handkerchief once more. Amelius stood looking at her in silent despair. After the tone in which she had spoken of her obligations to her uncle, it was useless to anticipate any satisfactory result from the exertion of his influence over Regina. Recalling what he had seen and heard, in Mrs. Farnaby’s room, Amelius could not doubt that the motive of pacifying his wife was the motive which had first led Farnaby to receive Regina into his house. Was it unreasonable or unjust to infer, that the orphan child must have been mainly indebted to Mrs. Farnaby’s sense of duty to the memory of her sister for the parental protection afforded to her, from that time forth? It would have been useless, and worse than useless, to place before Regina such considerations as these. Her exaggerated idea of the gratitude that she owed to her uncle was beyond the limited reach of reason. Nothing was to be gained by opposition; and no sensible course was left but to say some peace-making words and submit. “I beg your pardon, Regina, if I have offended you. You have sadly disappointed me. I haven’t deliberately misjudged you; I can say no more.” She turned round quickly, and looked at him. There was an ominous change to resignation in his voice, there was a dogged submission in his manner, that alarmed her. She had never yet seen him under the perilously-patient aspect in which he now presented himself, after his apology had been made. “I forgive you, Amelius, with all my heart,” she said--and timidly held out her hand. He took it, raised it silently to his lips, and dropped it again. She suddenly turned pale. All the love that she had in her to give to a man, she had given to Amelius. Her heart sank; she asked herself, in blank terror, if she had lost him. “I am afraid it is _I_ who have offended _you,”_ she said. “Don’t be angry with me, Amelius! don’t make me more unhappy than I am!”