Dexie freed her hands by a great effort.  His words had flowed like a torrent from his lips, and she took a step back from him, as she replied,

“Mr. McNeil, I will never regard you in the light you are thinking of, so all this talk is worse than folly.”

“Have I spoken too late?” he almost hissed.

His eyes seemed to burn as he looked into her face.

“Have you already promised yourself to Lancy?  Tell me!”

“I will not!” came the defiant answer.  “You have no right to ask such a question, and I will not answer it!”

Her defiant air and scornful words angered him.  He had buoyed himself up with the hope that if he once declared his love she would be touched with the declaration, and, if she did refuse him, would do it in a kindly way that would bid him hope for better luck by and by; but to have his love flung back in his teeth, as it were, was more than his passionate nature could bear.

“Oh! so you love him, do you, and spurn me.  Tell me, is it so?”

Again she stepped back from him as he was speaking, and was unaware how very near she was to the edge of the roof; but Hugh observed it, and thinking he could force a confession from her lips through fear, if by no other means, he quickly grasped her arm, saying in a voice trembling with passion: 

“Do you love him?  Tell me, or I’ll throw you over!”

Dexie turned her head, and for one awful moment, as she realized her peril, her face blanched to her very lips; but instead of the answer Hugh expected, she raised her eyes to his, and he quailed beneath their terrible glance, as she cried: 

“Throw me over then, you coward, for I’ll never tell you!”

An instant they stood thus face to face, on the very edge of the roof, when Hugh’s better nature asserted itself, and he quickly drew her back to safety, exclaiming hoarsely: 

“Forgive me, Dexie, I never meant to do it, indeed I did not; I would not harm a hair of your dear head for a thousand worlds!”

He felt weak and small before the girl whom he had thought to bend to his will, and made no effort now to keep her from entering the house, but stepped to the window beside her and raised it, endeavoring all the while to get a word of forgiveness from her close-shut lips.  She never even turned her head in his direction, but entered the house and into her own room, and Hugh was obliged to descend with a more uncomfortable feeling in his breast than he had felt there when he sought Dexie’s presence on the roof.  “Baffled, after all,” was his silent comment; “a coward, she called me; yes, it was a cowardly thing to do, and I might have known she would resent it.  But how handsome she looked as she defied me on the very edge of the roof!  I believe she would not have opened her lips and answered that question, even to save her life, after she had once refused to speak!  But I’ll win her yet, and she will be doubly dear when conquered at last, my brave Dexie!” and with feelings that were only intensified by this interview, he returned to the yard to prepare the carriage for the drive to the depot next morning.