‘In sin you mean,’ says Moore, his harsh voice now filled with a new virulence. ‘Make an end of this, girl—for come with me you shall. What’—violently—‘you would not live with me, who would have honourably married you; but you would live with him, who will never marry you!’ ‘I do not desire that he should marry me,’ says the girl, drawing herself up. Even in this terrible moment, when all her senses feel dulled, a look of pride grows upon her beautiful face. ‘And he does not live here.’ ‘Enough of that!’—gruffly. ‘You have told lies sufficient for one morning. Get up, and come with me.’ ‘Come with you?’ ‘Ay—and at once!’ ‘But’—she has risen, as if in strange unreasoning obedience to his command, being fully beneath the spell born of her horror and fear of him—‘but—I must have time—to write—to leave a word. He has been so kind—so kind. Give me’—her face is deadly white now, her tone anguished—‘only one moment to go in and write a line of good-bye to him.’ ‘Not one!’ says Moore sternly. ‘I shall not even wait for you to take off those garments—the garments of sin—that you are wearing. You shall come as you are—and now.’ He lays his hand upon her arm, and draws her towards the gate; still, as in a dream, she follows him. The bitterness of death is on her, yet she goes with him calmly—quietly. Perhaps there is a hope in her heart that as she had run away from him once, she might be able to do so again. But could she? Would he not, having been warned by her first escape, take pains to guard against a second? She knows that in her dreams, when he is not here, she can defy him, elude him, but to defy him when he is present would be too much for her; and, besides, he is her lawful guardian; he has said so. Her own mother had left her to him. He might call in the policeman in the village, and so compel her in that way. But oh, to go without saying good-bye to Mr. Wyndham! He had said he would come to-day! But all hope of his coming now is at an end. And Mrs. Denis! Not even to see her—she might have helped her. And not to say one word to her, or to Susan! What—what will they all think of her? At this moment they come to the hall-door of the Cottage, and she stops suddenly, and makes a little rush towards it, but the clutch on her arm is strong. ‘To say one word to Mrs. Denis,’ she gasps imploringly, damp breaking out upon her young forehead. ‘Oh!’—beating her hands with miserable agony upon her chest—‘think how it will be! They will for ever and ever remember me as ungrateful—unloving—a creature who had taken their love, and abused it. They will be glad to forget me.’ ‘I hope so,’ says he coldly, utterly unmoved—nay, knowing even pleasure in her grief. ‘The sooner they forget you, and you them, the better. “They!”’ He repeats the word. ‘Why don’t you say “he” and be done with it?’ cries he furiously. ‘What a —— hypocrite you are!’