I do not want you.'
'Mabel!'
'I do not want you. I know you will not help me, but you need not
destroy me.'
'You know that you are wronging me.'
'No! You understand it all though you look so calm. I hate your
Lady Mary Palliser. There! But if by anything I could do I could
secure her to you I would do it,--because you want it.'
'She will be your sister-in-law,--probably.'
'Never. It will never be so.'
'Why do you hate me?'
'There again! You are so little of a man that you can ask me
why!' Then she turned away as though she intended to go down to
the marge of the lake.
But he rose up and stopped her. 'Let us have this out, Mabel,
before we go,' he said. 'Unmanly is a heavy word to hear from you,
and you have used it a dozen times.'
'It is because I have thought it a thousand times. Go and get her
if you can,--but why tell me about it?'
'You said you would help me.'
'So I would, as I would help you do anything you might want; but
you can hardly think that after what has passed I can wish to hear
about her.
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