“And I tell you that I shall oppose you by all the means in my power, paltry though my power may be.”

Her eyes were flashing and she made a little automatic motion with her hands, as if sweeping something away from before her.  He had become pale and there was a light in his eyes.  He felt angry at this girl who had shown herself ready to argue with him,—­in her girlish fashion, of course,—­and who, after listening to his incontrovertible arguments, fell back resolutely upon a platitude, and considered that she had got the better of him.

She had got the better of him, too; that was the worst of it; his object in going to her, in arguing with her, was to induce her to promise to marry him, and he had failed.

It was on this account he was angry.  He might have had a certain consciousness of succeeding as a theologian, but he had undoubtedly failed as a lover.  He was angry.  He was as little accustomed as other clergymen to be withstood by a girl.

“I am disappointed in you,” said he.  “I fancied that when I—­when I——­” It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional.  “When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on behalf of the truth, but now——­Ah! you can never have loved me.”

“Perhaps you are right, indeed,” said she meekly.  She was ready to cede him this point if he set any store by it.

“Take care,” said he, with some measure of sternness.  “Take care, if you fancy you love another man, that he may be worthy of you.”

“I do not love another man, Mr. Holland,” said she gently; scarcely regretfully.

“Do you not?” said he, with equal gentleness.  “Then I will hope.”

“You will do very wrong.”

“You cannot say that without loving someone else.  I would not like to hear of your loving such a man as Herbert Courtland.”

She started at that piece of impertinence, and then, without the slightest further warning, she felt her body blaze from head to foot.  She was speechless with indignation.

“Perhaps I should have said a word of warning to you before.”  He had now assumed the calm dignity of a clergyman who knows what is due to himself.  “I am not one to place credence in vulgar gossip; I thought that your father, perhaps, might have given you a hint.  Mrs. Linton is undoubtedly a very silly woman.  God forbid that I should ever hear rumor play with your name as I have heard it deal with hers.”

His assumption of the clergyman’s solemn dignity did not make his remark less impertinent, considering that Ella Linton was her dearest friend.  And yet people were in the habit of giving George Holland praise for his tact.  Such persons had never seen him angry, wounded, and anxious to wound.