“You are both insolent and false.  But listen to me, since you are here and I cannot avoid you.  I know what your threats mean.”

“I have never threatened you.  I have promised you my aid, but have used no threats.”

“Not when you tell me that I shall be punished?  But to avoid no punishment, if any be in your power, will I ever willingly place myself in your company.  You may write of me what papers you please, and repeat of me whatever stories you may choose to fabricate, but you will not frighten me into compliance by doing so.  I have; at any rate, spirit enough to resist such attempts as that.”

“As you are living at present, you are alone in the world!”

“And I am content to remain alone.”

“You are thinking, then, of no second marriage?”

“If I were, does that concern you?  But I will speak no further word to you.  If you follow me into the inn, or persecute me further by forcing yourself upon me, I will put myself under the protection of the police.”

Having said this, she walked on as quickly as her strength would permit, while he walked by her side, urging upon her his old arguments as to Lord Ongar’s expressed wishes, as to his own efforts on her behalf—­and at last as to the strong affection with which he regarded her.  But she kept her promise, and said not a word in answer to it all.  For more than an hour they walked side by side, and during the greater part of that time not a syllable escaped from her.  From moment to moment she kept her eye warily on him, fearing that he might take her by the arm, or attempt some violence with her.  But he was too wise for this, and too fully conscious that no such proceeding on his part could be of any service to him.  He continued, however, to speak to her words which she could not avoid hearing—­hoping rather than thinking that he might at last frighten her by a description of all the evil which it was within his power to do her.  But in acting thus he showed that he knew nothing of her character.  She was not a woman whom any prospect of evil could possibly frighten into a distasteful marriage.

Within a few hundred yards of the hotel there is another fort, and at this point the path taken by Lady Ongar led into the private grounds of the inn at which she was staying.  Here the count left her, raising his hat as he did so, and saying that he hoped to see her again before she left the island.

“If you do so,” said she, “it shall be in presence of those who can protect me.”  And so they parted.

Chapter XXXII

What Cecilia Burton Did For Her Sister-In-Law