Miss Carr caught my hand in hers, as I started, stung to the quick and mortified by his words. "Shame, John Lister!" she said, with a look that should have brought him to his senses. "Shame! How can you speak like that in Antony Grace's presence, and to me?" "Because you make me desperate," he cried angrily. "I can bear it no longer. I will not be trifled with. For months now you have treated me as a child. Once more, will you send away this boy, or come with me into another room?" "Mr Lister," she said, rising, "you are angry and excited. You are saying words now which you will afterwards grieve over, as much as I snail regret to have heard them spoken." "I can't help that," he exclaimed. "Day after day I have come to you, begging you to listen to me, but I have always been put off, until now I have grown desperate." "Desperate?" she said wonderingly. "Yes, desperate. I do not wish to speak before this boy, but you force me to it." "What is there in our engagement that I should be ashamed to let the whole world hear?" she said proudly. "Why, if I listened to you, it would be published to every one who would hear." Mr Lister took a few strides up and down the room. "Will you hear me, Miriam?" he cried, making an ineffectual effort to command his temper. "John Lister," she replied, "I have given you your answer, Come to me in six months' time." "Am I to take that as final?" he said hoarsely. "Yes. How can I reply otherwise to your violence?" "Violence! It is enough to drive a man mad! But, once more, Miriam, give me your verbal answer to the note I sent you this morning. Yes or no. Pause before you answer, for you do not know how much depends upon it. You have made me desperate. Don't leave me to repent of what I have done." "John, dear John!" she said softly, "I am alone in the world, with none to guide me, and I have prayed for help that I might give a right answer to your request." "Yes," he said, with his lip curling, "and it is--" "It is for both our sakes, John," she said softly; "I could not in justice to us both say yes, now; it must be _no_!" He did not speak, but stood glaring at her for a few moments. Then, looking very white, and drawing in his breath with a long, low hiss, he turned upon his heel and left the room. For a few minutes Miss Carr sat gazing at the door through which he had passed, and then, turning and seeing my hot, flushed face, she seemed to recall Mr Lister's words about me, and she took my hand, sitting very quietly for a time. "When people are angry, Antony," she said quietly, "they say things they do not intend or mean. You must forgive Mr Lister his words about you--for my sake." "I will do what you wish," I said, and then I began wondering whether I ought to tell Miss Carr what I knew about Mr Lister's affairs, for it seemed to me that the words I had heard must be true, and that this was the explanation of his great anxiety to fix the day.