She broke in upon his burst of indignation with a low, clear laugh, and there was no shame in her voice or eyes, as she said: 

“Would it be so shameful if I have?  My dear father, you and I should differ on that point.  We are told that we are made for love and to be loved, that it is our proper and natural destiny.  Why, then, should we be ashamed of it.  None of us are in reality; we only pretend to be.  It is part of the world’s system of hypocrisy to assume an incapacity for loving a man until he has asked you; to pretend an utter indifference until he has said the magic words, ‘I love you.’  As if love could wait, ever did wait, ever will!  Anyway, mine did not!  And I am no different to other women—­only more candid.”

“By Heaven, you make me feel—­mad!” he said, with suppressed anger.  “You tell me unblushingly, to my face, that you have fallen in love with the son of my old enemy, that you want to marry him—­you ask me to help you, to—­to forego my just revenge, to use my hold over him as a lever, to induce him, force him—­Good God! have you no sense of right or wrong, are you utterly devoid of—­of modesty, of womanly pride!”

He glowered down upon her with flushed face and angry eyes; but she was quite unmoved by his outburst, and still met his gaze steadily, almost reflectingly.

“A fortnight ago I should have asked myself that question—­and as angrily as you; but I can’t now.  It has gone too far.”

“Gone too far!  You mean—­”

“That I have grown to love him so much, so dearly, that life without him—­”

“By God! you will have to live without him, for I’ll not help you to get him,” he said, fiercely.  “Stafford Orme, Stephen Orme’s boy!  No!  Put the thing out of your mind, Maude!  See here—­I don’t want to be angry; I’ll take back all I said:  you—­well, you surprised me, and shocked me, too, I’ll admit—­you’re a strange girl, and say things that you don’t mean, and in a cold-blooded way that gives me fits.  Say no more about it; put the idea out of your head.”

She laughed, and rose, and gliding to him, put her hand on his arm.

“My dear father,” she said in a low voice, but with a strange and subtle vibration in it, as if the passion with which she was struggling threatened to burst forth, “you don’t know what you ask; you don’t know what love is—­and you don’t know what I am!  I didn’t know myself until the last few days; until a gradual light shone on the truth and showed me my heart, the heart I once thought would never grow warm with love!  Oh, I was a fool!  I played with fire, and I have been burned.  I am burning still!” She pressed her hand against her bosom, and for an instant the passion within her darted from her eyes and twisted the red, perfectly formed lips.  Her hand tightened on his arm, her breath came pantingly, now quickly, now slowly.  “Father I have come to you.  Most girls go to their mother.  I have none.  I come to you because I—­must!  You