Her dress of dead black fell in soft, clinging folds about her slender form, making her seem taller than she really was, while one hand had been raised to enforce the commands which she had laid upon him.

He thought her the fairest vision he had ever seen, in spite of her indignation against him, and if she had sought to fascinate him—­to weave the spell of her witchery more effectually about him, she could have taken no surer way to do so.

He could not fail to admire her spirit—­it but served to glorify her in his sight, and made him more eager than before to conquer her.

“Nay, do not leave me thus—­do not be so bitter against me, my peerless Ruth,” he pleaded.  “Perhaps I have been premature in my avowal, but I beg that you will not despise me on that account.  Do not judge me so harshly.  Lay my impatience rather to my eagerness to win you.  I would do anything in the world to make you love me, and now, I fear, I have only been driving you farther from me.  I love you, honestly and sincerely, my beautiful Ruth, and I would not only dare to confess it to my aunt, but proclaim it before the world, if that would serve to prove it to you.  Ah! teach me how to woo you, my darling; give me but a crumb of hope upon which to feed, and I will try to be satisfied until you can learn to have more confidence in me.”

He reached forth his arms as if he would have infolded her; and Mona, who for the moment had been rendered spell-bound by the swift rush of burning words that he had poured forth, seemed suddenly electrified by the act.

She felt both insulted and humiliated by this premature avowal of a love that had not received the slightest encouragement from her, and she recoiled from him with a gesture of contempt.

“I wonder how you have dared to say this to me,” she cried, in a voice that quivered with indignation, “when in my very presence you have shown another attentions such as a man has a right to bestow only upon the woman whom he intends to marry.  But for the respect I owe myself and my sex, I would like to brand you with a mark that would betray your disloyalty to the world, and make Miss McKenzie despise you as I do; being only a weak woman, however, I must content myself with simply manifesting my scorn, and by telling you to go!” and she pointed authoritatively toward the door with one white taper finger.

A hot, crimson flush dyed the young man’s white face with a sense of shame, such as he had never before experienced in the presence of any one, while the purple veins stood out in ridges upon his forehead.

He was completely cowed before her.  Conscious himself of the insincerity and unworthiness of his declaration, he knew that she also had read him like an open book, and the knowledge made him fearfully angry; while to be foiled in his purpose and browbeaten by this girl, whom he imagined to be only what she seemed, was more than his indomitable spirit could tamely submit to.