Castle Craneycrow Part 20

"I have first to ask if you despise me," he found voice to say.

"I decline to answer that question.''

"Your mother has said so."

"She should not have done so."

"Then she has misrepresented you?" he cried, taking several steps toward her.

"I did not say that she had."

"Dorothy, what do you mean by this? What right have you to--" he began, fiercely.

"Mr. Quentin!" exclaimed Mrs. Garrison, haughtily.

"Well," cried he, at bay and doggedly, "I must know the truth. Will you come to the veranda with me, Dorothy?"

"No," she replied, without a quaver.

"I must talk with you alone. What I have to say is of the gravest importance. It is for your welfare, and I shall leave my own feelings out of it, if you like. But I must and will say what I came here to say."

"There is nothing that I care to hear from you."

"By all that's holy, you shall hear it, and alone, too," he exclaimed so commandingly that both women started. He caught a quick flutter in Dorothy's eyes and saw the impulse that moved her lips almost to the point of parting. "I demand--yes, demand--to be heard!

Come! Dorothy, for G.o.d's sake, come!"

He was at her side and, before she could prevent it, had grasped her hand in his own. All resistance was swept away like chaff before the whirlwind. The elder woman so far forgot her cold reserve as to blink her austere eyes, while Dorothy caught her breath, looked startled and suffered herself to be led to the door without a word of protest. There he paused and turned to Mrs. Garrison, whose thunderstruck countenance was afterward the subject of more or less amus.e.m.e.nt to him, and, if the truth were known, to her daughter.

"When I have said all that I have to say to her, Mrs. Garrison, I'll bring her back to you."

Neither he nor Dorothy uttered a word until they stood before each other in the dark palm-surrounded nook where, on one memorable night, he had felt the first savage blow of the enemy.

"Dorothy, there can no longer be any dissembling. I love you. You have doubtless known it for weeks and weeks. It will avail you nothing to deny that you love me. I have seen--" he was charging, hastily, feverishly.

"I do deny it. How dare you make such an a.s.sertion?" she cried, hotly.

"I said it would avail you nothing to deny it, but I expected the denial. You have not forgotten those dear days when we were boy and girl. We both thought they had gone from us forever, but we were mistaken. To-day I love you as a man loves, only as a man can love who has but one woman in his world. Sit here beside me, Dorothy."

"I will not!" she exclaimed, trembling in every fiber, but he gently, firmly took her arm and drew her to the wicker bench. "I hate you, Philip Quentin!" she half sobbed, the powerlessness to resist infuriating her beyond expression.

"Forget that I was rough or harsh, dear. Sit still," he cried, as at the word of endearment she attempted to rise.

"You forget yourself! You forget--" was all she could say.

"Why did you refuse to see me this afternoon?" he asked, heedlessly.

"Because I believed you to be what I now know you are," she said, turning on him quickly, a look of scorn in her eyes.

"Your adorer?" he half-whispered.

"A coward!" she said, slowly, distinctly.

"Coward?" he gasped, unwilling to believe his ears. "What--I know I may deserve the word now, but--but this afternoon? What do you mean?"

"Your memory is very short."

"Don't speak in riddles, Dorothy," he cried.

"You know how I loathe a coward, and I thought you were a brave man.

When I heard--when I was told--O, it does not seem possible that you could be so craven."

"Tell me what you have heard," he said, calmly, divining the truth.

"Why did you let d.i.c.key Savage fight for you last night? Where was your manhood? Why did you slink away from Prince Ravorelli this morning?" she said, intensely.

"Who has told you all this?" he demanded.

"No matter who has told me. You did play the part of a coward. What else can you call it?"

"I did not have the chance to fight last night; your informant's plans went wrong d.i.c.key was my unintentional subst.i.tute. As for Ravorelli's challenge this morning, I did not refuse to meet him."

"That is untrue!"

"I declined to fight the duel with him, but I said I would fight as we do at home, with my hands. Would you have me meet him with deadly weapons?"

"I only know that you refused to do so, and that Brussels calls you a coward."

"You would have had me accept his challenge? Answer!"

"You lost every vestige of my respect by refusing to do so."

"Then you wanted me to meet and to kill him," he said, accusingly.

"I--I--Oh, it would not have meant that," she gasped.

"Did you want him to kill me?" he went on, relentlessly.

"They would have prevented the duel! It could not have gone so far as that," she said, trembling and terrified.

"You know better than that, Dorothy. I would have killed him had we met. Do you understand? I would have killed the man you expect to marry. Have you thought of that?" She sank back in the seat and looked at him dumbly, horror in her face. "That is one reason why I laughed at his ridiculous challenge. How could I hope to claim the love of the woman whose affianced husband I had slain? I can win you with him alive, but I would have built an insurmountable barrier between us had he died by my hand. Could you have gone to the altar with him if he had killed me?"

"O, Phil," she whispered.

"Another reason why I refused to accept his challenge was that I could not fight a cur."

"Phil Quentin!" she cried, indignantly,

"I came here to tell you the truth about the man you have promised to marry. You shall hear me to the end, too. He is as black a coward, as mean a scoundrel as ever came into the world."