With a half-suppressed cry she wrung her hand from his grasp and answered, wildly: 

“I sought your presence to entreat you—­and to warn you!  I have supplicated you, and you have turned a deaf ear to my prayer!  Now I warn you! and disregard my warning, if you dare! despise it at your peril!  I am going out of my wits, I think!  I warn you that I may consent to become your wife!  I have no persevering resistance in my nature.  I cannot hold out forever against those I love.  But I warn you, that if ever I consent, it will be under the undue influence of others!”

“Put your consent upon any ground you please, you delightful, you enchanting little creature.  We will spare your blushes, charming as they are!” he exclaimed, surprised out of self-control and seizing both her hands.

Angrily she snatched them from him.

“What have I said?  Oh! what have I said?  I believe I am going crazy!  I tell you, Dr. Grimshaw, that if I ever yield, it will be only to the overwhelming force brought to bear upon me; and even then it will be only during a temporary fit of insanity!  And I warn you—­I warn you not to dare to take me at my word!”

“Will I not?  You bewitching little sprite! do you do this to make me love you ten thousand times more than I do?”

Passionately she broke forth in reply: 

“You do not believe me!  You do not see that I am in terrible earnest!  I tell you, Dr. Grimshaw, that were I induced to consent to be your wife, you had better not take advantage of such a consent!  It would be the most fatal day’s work you ever did for yourself in this world!  You think I’m only a spoiled, petulant child!  You do not know me!  I do not know myself!  I am full of evil!  I feel it sensibly, when I am near you!  You develop the worst of me!  Should you marry me, the very demon would rise in my bosom!  I should drive you to distraction!”

“You drive me to distraction now, you intoxicating little witch!” he exclaimed, laughing and darting towards her.

She started and escaped his hand, crying: 

“Saints in heaven!  What infatuation!  What madness!  It must be fate!  Avert the fate, man!  Avert it! while there is yet time!  Go get a mill-stone and tie it around your neck and cast yourself into the uttermost depths of the sea before ever you dare to marry me!” Her cheeks were blazing with color and her eyes with light!  He saw only her transcendant beauty.

“Why, you little tragi-comic enchantress, you!—­what do you mean?  Come to my arms!  Come, wild, bright bird! come to my bosom!” he said, stepping towards her and throwing his arms around her.

“Vampire!” she exclaimed, struggling to free herself for a moment; and then as his lips sought hers the color faded from her face and the light died in her eyes, and he hastily released her and set her in a chair lest she should swoon in his hated arms.

“Now, how am I expected to live with such a wife as this girl would make me?  If it were not for the estate I should be tempted to give her up, and travel to forget her!  How shall I overcome her repugnance?  Not by courting her; that’s demonstrated.  Only by being kind to her, and letting her alone.”  Such was the tenor of his thoughts as he stood a little behind her chair out of her sight.