The Iron King, however, noticed his granddaughter’s coldness and reserve, and he deeply resented it.

One very rainy, dismal Sunday they were all at home and in the drawing room.  Cora had sat for hours in silence, or replying to Mrs. Stillwater’s frequent attempts to draw her into conversation in brief monosyllables, until at last the visitor arose and left the room, not hurt or offended, as Mr. Rockharrt supposed, but simply tired of staying so long in one place.

But the Iron King turned on his granddaughter and demanded: 

“Corona Rothsay! why do you treat our visitor with such unladylike rudeness?”

Cora, brought roughly out of her sad reverie, gazed at the old man vaguely.  She scarcely heard his question, and certainly did not understand it.

“Father,” ventured Mr. Clarence, “I do not believe Cora could treat any one with rudeness, and surely she could never be unladylike.  But you see she is absent-minded.”

“Hold your tongue, sir!  How dare you interfere?” sternly exclaimed the despot.  “But I see how it is,” he added, with the savage satisfaction of a man who has power to crush and means to do it—­“I see how it is!  That oppressed woman will never be treated by either of you with proper respect until I give her my name and make her my wife and the mistress of my house.”

CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE WEB.

“Yes, sir and madam, you may stare; but I mean to place my guest in a position from which she can command due honor.  I mean to give her my name and make her the mistress of my house,” said old Aaron Rockharrt; and he leaned back in his chair and drew himself up.

Had a thunderbolt fallen among them, it could hardly have caused greater consternation.

The shock was more effective because both his hearers knew full well that old Aaron Rockharrt never used vain threats, and that he would do exactly what he said he would do.  Having said that he meant to marry the unwelcome guest, he would marry her.

But what unutterable amazement fell upon the two people!  Both had felt a vague dread of evil from the presence of this siren in the house; but their darkest, wildest fears had never shadowed forth this unspeakable folly.  The Iron King, a man of seventy-seven, strong, firm, upright, honored, to fall into the idiocy of marrying a beautiful adventuress merely because she waited on him, ran his errands, warmed his slippers, put on his dressing gown or his overcoat, as he would come in or go out, and generally made him comfortable; but above all perhaps, because she flattered his egotism without measure.  And yet the Iron King was considered sane, and was sane on all other subjects.

So thought Clarence and Cora as they gasped, glanced at the old man, gazed at each other, and then dropped their eyes in a sort of shame.

Neither spoke or could speak.