"What!" Bella's voice leaped an octave; "you--you--murder Cyril?"
"Yes, Cyril, the man you love. And if I dared----"
"Mr. Pence"--Bella saw the necessity of keeping herself well in hand with this hysterical youth, for he was nothing else, and spoke in a calm, kind voice--"my father has not seen Mr. Lister, and cannot hate him."
"Go and ask him what he thinks," said Pence fiercely. "I tell you that to-day I was offered everything if I would kill this man Lister."
"You are talking at random," she said soothingly; "go home, and lie down."
"I am talking of what may come to pass. Your father wishes it, so why not, when I love you so deeply? I offer you the heart of an honest man, and yet you would throw that aside for this profligate."
"Cyril is not a profligate," interrupted Bella, and could have bitten out her tongue for the hasty speech.
"He is. He comes from London, the City of Evil, that shall yet fall like Babylon the Great. But your soul shall not be lost; you shall not marry him."
"I shall!" cried Bella, indignantly, and becoming rash again in her anger; "and what is more, I am engaged to him now. So there! Let me pass."
She slipped deftly past him, and walked swiftly homeward. Silas Pence stood where he was, staring after her, unable to speak or move or to follow. Then the sun sank, leaving him in the twilight of sorrow.
Miss Huxham did not credit for one moment the story which Pence had told her. It was ridiculous to think that her father would even hint at the murder of an unoffending man whom he had never seen, and to hesitating, timid Silas, of all people. Bella remembered that, months previously, when she had mentioned a chance meeting with Lister--then a stranger--at the cottage of the Marshely school-mistress, Captain Huxham had not only forbidden her to bring him to Bleacres, which the young man desired to see, but had ordered her to discontinue the acquaintance. Evidently the retired mariner deemed this prohibition sufficient, for he made no further mention of the matter. That he gave no reason for his tyrannical edict, did not trouble him; but because of this very omission, his daughter took her own way. By stealth, it is true, lest Huxham should exhibit annoyance--for annoyance with him meant wild-beast rage.