"When do you go?" repeated Charlotte. "In an hour from this." "Quick work," remarked Charlotte. "Verrall gives no time for the grass to grow in anything _he_ has to do with." "The quick departure is mine," said Mr. Pain. "So that I am in town for business to-morrow morning, it's all that Verrall cares about. He suggested that I should go up by a night train." "_I_ should," cried Charlotte, bluntly. "No you would not," answered Rodolf Pain in a tone of bitterness. "Were you treated by any one as you treat me, you'd be glad enough to get away." "That's good!" ejaculated Charlotte with a ringing laugh. "I'm sure I treat you beautifully. Many a one would jump at getting the treatment from me that I give you; I can tell you that, Mr. Dolf." Mr. Dolf smoked on in silence; rather savagely for him. "What have you to complain of?" pursued Charlotte. "This," said he, sternly. "That you promised to be my wife; that you have led me on, Heaven knows how long, causing me to believe you meant what you said, that you would keep your promise; and now you coolly turn round and jilt me! That bare fact, is quite enough, Charlotte, without going into another mortifying fact--your slighting behaviour to me lately." "Who says I have jilted you--or that I mean to jilt you?" asked Charlotte. "Who says it?" retorted Rodolf Pain. "Why--are you not doing so?" "No. I dare say I shall have you some time." "I am getting tired of it, Charlotte," said he, in a weary tone of pain. "I have cared for nothing but you in the world--in the shape of woman--but I am getting tired; and I have had enough to make me. If you will fix our wedding now, before I go up, and keep to it, I'll bless you for it, and make you a fonder husband than George Godolphin would have made you." "How dare you mention George Godolphin to me in that way?" cried Charlotte, with flashing eyes, for the sentence had roused all her ire. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dolf Pain! Has not George Godolphin--as it turns out--been engaged to Maria Hastings longer than I have known him, and has now married her? Do you suppose I could have spent that time with them both, in Scotland, at Lady Godolphin's, and not have become acquainted with their secret? That must prove what your senseless jealousy was worth!" "Charlotte," said he, meekly, "as to George Godolphin, I readily confess I was mistaken, and I am sorry to have been so stupid. You might have set me right with a word, but I suppose you preferred to tease me. However, he is done with now. But, Charlotte, I tell you that altogether I am getting tired of it. Have me, or not, as you feel you can: but, played with any longer, I will not be. If you dismiss me now, you dismiss me for good." "I have half a mind to say yes," returned Charlotte, in the coolest tone, as if she were deciding a trifling matter--the choice of a bonnet, or the route to be pursued in a walk. "But there's one thing holds me back, Dolf."