“Bosh!  You are always wrong!” sneered old Aaron Rockharrt.  “And you always will be wrong!  You were wrong when you wished to break your engagement with Regulas Rothsay to marry the Duke of Cumbervale, and you are wrong, now that you are free, to reject the man.  Why, look at it:  Now that you have been a widow for more than two years, and Cumbervale has proved his constancy by remaining a bachelor two years for your sake, and crossing the ocean and coming down here to propose for you again, and even after I—­I myself—­have positively promised him your hand, and have given a family dinner in honor of the occasion, and have announced the engagement, and after speeches have been made and toasts have been drank to the happiness and prosperity of your married life, and all due formalities of betrothal had been observed, then, mistress, what do you do?” severely demanded old Aaron Rockharrt.

“Only my duty under the circumstances.  I was not in the least bound or compromised by or responsible for anything that was said or done at that dinner table,” replied Corona.

“This is what you do:  You dare to set me at defiance!  You dare to set your will against mine!  You dare to reject the man whom I chose for your husband, whom I announced as your betrothed husband!  You dare to drive him away from my house, grieved, disappointed, humiliated, to become a wanderer over the face of the earth for your sake, even as you drove Regulas Rothsay from the goal of his ambition into exile, and—­”

A sharp cry from Corona suddenly stopped him in full career.

“Do not, oh! do not speak of that!  I—­I would have given my life to have prevented Rule’s loss, if I could!  As for this man—­this duke—­he is nothing whatever to me, and never can be!”

“And yet you were ready to fall down and worship him three years ago!”

“It was a brief insanity—­a self-delusion.  That is past.  Cumbervale never was and never can be anything to me.  No man can ever be anything to me!  I could not live Rule’s wife, but I will die Rule’s widow; and I do not care how soon—­the sooner the better, if it were the Lord’s will!” moaned Corona.

“Drivel!” angrily exclaimed old Aaron Rockharrt.  “I am tired of your idiotic, imbecile hypocrisies!  Here are two men driven away by your unprincipled vacillation—­to call your conduct by the lightest name.  One driven to his death; one driven, it may be, to his ruin.  It is quite time you were sent to follow your victims.  Look you!  I am just about to start for North End.  I shall return home at my usual time this evening.  Do not let me find you here when I arrive, for I never wish to see your false face again!” said the Iron King, rising from his arm chair and striding from the room.

Corona started up and ran after him, pleading, imploring—­

“Grandfather!  Dear grandfather!  Oh, I beg pardon!  I forgot!  Sir! sir!  Oh, do not part from me in this way!”