“Then, if you will not tell me,” said Robert, “say what you think of your father’s proposal?  He meant that I may ask you to be my wife.  He used to fancy I cared for your sister.  That’s false.  I care for her—­yes; as my sister too; and here is my hand to do my utmost for her, but I love you, and I’ve loved you for some time.  I’d be proud to marry you and help on with the old farm.  You don’t love me yet—­which is a pretty hard thing for me to see to be certain of.  But I love you, and I trust you.  I like the stuff you’re made of—­and nice stuff I’m talking to a young woman,” he added, wiping his forehead at the idea of the fair and flattering addresses young women expect when they are being wooed.

As it was, Rhoda listened with savage contempt of his idle talk.  Her brain was beating at the mystery and misery wherein Dahlia lay engulfed.  She had no understanding for Robert’s sentimentality, or her father’s requisition.  Some answer had to be given, and she said,—­

“I’m not likely to marry a man who supposes he has anything to pardon.”

“I don’t suppose it,” cried Robert.

“You heard what father said.”

“I heard what he said, but I don’t think the same.  What has Dahlia to do with you?”

He was proceeding to rectify this unlucky sentence.  All her covert hostility burst out on it.

“My sister?—­what has my sister to do with me?—­you mean!—­you mean—­you can only mean that we are to be separated and thought of as two people; and we are one, and will be till we die.  I feel my sister’s hand in mine, though she’s away and lost.  She is my darling for ever and ever.  We’re one!”

A spasm of anguish checked the girl.

“I mean,” Robert resumed steadily, “that her conduct, good or bad, doesn’t touch you.  If it did, it’d be the same to me.  I ask you to take me for your husband.  Just reflect on what your father said, Rhoda.”

The horrible utterance her father’s lips had been guilty of flashed through her, filling her with mastering vindictiveness, now that she had a victim.

“Yes!  I’m to take a husband to remind me of what he said.”

Robert eyed her sharpened mouth admiringly; her defence of her sister had excited his esteem, wilfully though she rebutted his straightforward earnestness and he had a feeling also for the easy turns of her neck, and the confident poise of her figure.

“Ha! well!” he interjected, with his eyebrows queerly raised, so that she could make nothing of his look.  It seemed half maniacal, it was so ridged with bright eagerness.

“By heaven! the task of taming you—­that’s the blessing I’d beg for in my prayers!  Though you were as wild as a cat of the woods, by heaven!  I’d rather have the taming of you than go about with a leash of quiet”—­he checked himself—­“companions.”

Such was the sudden roll of his tongue, that she was lost in the astounding lead he had taken, and stared.