“Silence!  Three years ago you would have walked over all our dead bodies, if necessary, to marry that noble booby.  And you would have married him if it had not been for me!  I would not permit you to wed him then, because you were in honor bound to Regulas Rothsay.  I shall insist on your accepting him now, because poor Rothsay is in his grave, and this will be the best thing to do for you to help you out of harm’s way from redskins and rattlesnakes and other reptiles.  I don’t think much of the fellow; but he seems to be a harmless idiot, and is good enough for you.”

Cora answered never a word, but she felt quite sure that not even the iron will of the Iron King could ever coerce her into marriage with any man, least of all with the man whose memory was identified with her heart’s tragedy.  The old man continued his monologue.

“The best thing about the fellow is his constancy.  He was after your imaginary fortune once.  I am sure of that.  And he was so dazzled by the illumination of that ignis fatuus that he didn’t see you, perhaps, and didn’t recognize how much he really cared for you.  At all events, in his letter to me—­and, by the way, it is very strange that he should write to me after the snubbing I gave him in London,” said the Iron King, reflectively.

Cora did not think that was strange.  She, at least, felt sure that it was as impossible for the young duke to take offense at the rudeness of the old iron man as at the raging of a dog or the tearing of a bull.  But she did not drop a hint of this to the egotist, who never imagined passive insolence to be at the bottom of the duke’s forbearance.

“In his letter to me,” resumed old Aaron Rockharrt, “the young fool tells me that, immediately after his great disappointment in being rejected by you, he left England—­and, indeed, Europe—­and traveled through every accessible portion of Asia and Africa, in the hope of overcoming his misplaced affection, but in vain, for that he returned home at the end of two years with his heart unchanged.  There he learned through the newspapers that you had been recently widowed, through the murder of your husband in an Indian mutiny.  That’s how he put it.  He farther wrote that, in the face of such a tragedy as that, he felt bound to forbear the faintest approach toward resuming his acquaintance with you until some considerable time should have elapsed, although, he was careful to add, he always believed that you had given him your heart, and would have given him your hand had you been permitted to do so.  He ended his letter by asking me to give him your address, that he might write to you.  He evidently supposed you to be keeping house for yourself, as English widows of condition usually do.  Well, my girl, what do you think I did?”

“You told me, sir, that, being at leisure just then, you answered his letter immediately,” coldly replied Cora.

“Yes; and I told him that you were living with me.  I gave him the full address.  And I told him that I was pleased with his frankness and fidelity, qualities which I highly approved; and I added that if he wished to renew his suit to you, he need not waste time in writing, but that he might come over and court you in person here at Rockhold, where he should receive a hearty, old-fashioned welcome.”