Florence turned on him with bitter scorn. “_Gentlemen!_ Mr. Plowden, why is the word so often on your lips? Surely, after the part you have just played, you do not presume to rank yourself among _gentlemen?_ Listen! it suits my purposes that you should marry Eva, and you shall marry her; but I will not stoop to play the hypocrite with a man like you. You talk of yourself as a gentleman, and do not scruple to force an innocent girl into a wicked marriage, and to crush her spirit with your cunning cruelty. A _gentleman_ forsooth!—a satyr, a devil in disguise!” “I am only asserting my rights,” he said, furiously; “and whatever I have done, you have done more.” “Do not try your violence on me, Mr. Plowden; it will not do. I am not made of the same stuff as your victim. Lower your voice, or leave the house and do not enter it again.” Mr. Plowden’s heavy under-jaw fell a little; he was terribly afraid of Florence. “Now,” she said, “listen! I do not choose that you should labour under any mistake. I hold your hand in this business, though to have to do with you in any way is in itself a defilement,” and she wiped her delicate fingers on a pocket-handkerchief as she said the word, “because I have an end of my own to gain. Not a vulgar end like yours, but a revenge, which shall be almost divine or diabolical, call it which you will, in its completeness. Perhaps it is a madness, perhaps it is an inspiration, perhaps it is a fate. Whatever it is, it animates me body and soul, and I will gratify it, though to do so I have to use a tool like you. I wished to explain this to you. I wished, too, to make it clear to you that I consider you contemptible. I have done both, and I have now the pleasure to wish you good-morning.” Mr. Plowden left the house white with fury, and cursing in a manner remarkable in a clergyman. [Illustration: “Mr. Plowden left the house, white with fury.”] “If she wasn’t so handsome, hang me if I would not throw the whole thing up!” he said. Needless to say, he did nothing of the sort; he only kept out of Florence’s way. CHAPTER XIV. THE VIRGIN MARTYR