“You use that expression with strange pertinacity. I must tell you again that there can not possibly be any thing in common between you and me. For my part, I consider you as my natural enemy. You are my jailer. I am your prisoner. That is all. I am at war with you. I would give half of my possessions to escape from your hands, and the other half to punish you for what you have done. I live in the hope of some day meting out to you the punishment which your crimes deserve. If any one is an enemy of yours, that one thing is a sufficient recommendation to make him a friend of mine.” At these words Wiggins seemed to endure a keener anguish, and his face bore upon it the same pallid horror which she had seen there before upon a similar provocation. He stared at her for a few moments, and then bowing down, he leaned his head upon his hand and looked at the floor in silence. At last, he raised his head and looked at her with a calm face. “Is there no possible way,” said he, “in which I can speak to you without receiving wounds that sting like the fangs of a serpent? Be patient with me. If I offend, try to be a little forbearing just now, for the sake of yourself, if for nothing else. See, I am humbling myself. I ask your forbearance. I wish to speak for your own good. For, as it is, you are doing you know not what. You are ruining yourself; you are blighting and blasting your own future; you are risking your reputation; you are exposing the family name to the sneers of the world, once again. Think of your frantic adventure at the gates with that--that Mowbray!” Now if Wiggins had wished to mollify Edith, or to persuade her to fall in with his own wishes, he was certainly most unfortunate in his way of going about it; and especially in such an allusion as this. For no sooner did he mention the name of Mowbray than Edith was roused to a fresh excitement. “What!” she exclaimed. “Do _you_ throw that up to _me_--you of all men? Who, I ask you, was the cause of all the shame and misery and violence that I suffered there? Who was the one that made it necessary? Who was the one that brought me to such a pitch of desperation that I was ready to do any thing, however wild or frantic? Who? Why, you yourself--you, who come to me now, and with a solemn voice ask me to calm myself. Is it not possible for you to see what a horrible mockery all this must be to me? But I will do what you ask. I will be calm in spite of all. Come, now, I will meet you on your own ground. I will ask you one thing. How much money will you take to let me go free?” At this request Wiggins stared at her with the expression of one who, while already reeling under a stroke, has received some new blow. He started from his chair to his feet, and stood for a moment regarding her with an indescribable look. But again he mastered his emotions, and finally resumed his seat.