There was a slight struggle, and he tore himself free, holding her wrists together in his powerful grasp and keeping her at arm's length. "There! Idiot!" he cried. "Must I hold you till you come to your senses." "If you wish--brute!" she cried through her little white teeth as her lips were drawn away. "Kill me if you like now. I don't care a bit: you can't hurt me more than you have." "If I hurt you, it serves you right. A nice, ladylike creature, 'pon my soul. Pity my mother hasn't been here to see the kind of woman she wanted me to marry." "Go on," she whispered, "go on. Insult me: you have a right. Go on." "I'm going off," he said roughly. "There, go up to your room, and have a good hysterical cry and a wash, and come back to your senses. If you will have it you shall, and the whole truth too. I never cared a bit for you. It was all your own doing, leading me on. Want to go." "Loose my hands, brute." "For you to scratch my face, my red-haired pussy. Not such a fool. I know your sweet temper of old. If I let go, will you be quiet?" Marjorie made no reply, but she ceased to struggle and stood there with her wrists held, the white skin growing black--a prisoner--till, with a contemptuous laugh, he threw the little arms from him. "Go and tell Glynne everything you know--everything you have seen, if you like," he said harshly, "only tell everything about yourself too, and then come back to me to be loved, my sweet, amiable, little white-faced tigress. I'm not afraid though, Madge. You can't open those pretty lips of yours, can you? It might make others speak in their defence." "Brute," she whispered as she gazed at him defiantly and held out her bruised wrists. "Brute, am I? Well, let sleeping brutes lie. Don't try to rouse them up for fear they should bite. Go to your room and bathe your pretty red eyes after having a good cry, and then come and tell me that you think it is best to cry truce, and forget all the past." "Never, Rob, dear," she said with a curious smile. "Go on; but mind this: you shall never marry Glynne Day." "Sha'n't I? We shall see. I think I can pull that off," he cried with a mocking laugh. "But if I don't, whom shall I marry?" She turned from him slowly, and then faced round again as she reached the door. "Me," she said quietly; and the next minute Robert Rolph was alone. Volume 1, Chapter X. A CLOUDY SKY. "Oh, father, I'm so glad you've come." This was Ben Hayle's greeting as he reached the keeper's lodge. "Eh? Are you?" he said, with an assumed look of ignorance; but the corners of his eyes were twitching, and he was asking himself how he was to tell his child matters that would nearly break her heart, as he yielded his hand to hers, and let her press him back into his windsor arm-chair. "Nothing the matter, is there?"