He was on his knees, and his arms were about her, drawing her averted face towards his own with a wild violence, till her brow touched his, and his lips were pressed against her burning cheek. She felt the passion of his kiss, and his tears upon her face, before she wrenched herself from his arms, and dashed down the glass in front of her.
"Stop!" she called out to the postillions.
Startled at her authoritative cry, they pulled up their horses suddenly, with a loud clattering on the stones, a hundred yards from the bridge.
"You devil!" she said to Stobart, between her set teeth. "You that I took for a saint! I will not breathe the same air with you."
The carriage had hardly stopped when she opened the door and sprang out, not waiting for her footman to let down the steps. He had been asleep in the rumble, and only alighted a moment before his mistress.
She walked towards the bridge in a tumult of agitation, Stobart at her side, while her carriage and horses stood still, and her servants waited for orders, wondering at this strange caprice of their lady's.
"Hypocrite! hypocrite!" she repeated. "You--the Christian, the preacher who calls sinners to repentance; the man who sacrificed fortune to marry the girl he loved."
"You chose a simple girl for your wife, and tired of her; pretended friendship for me, and under that mask of friendship nursed your profligate dreams; and now you dare insult me with your unholy love."
"I should not have so dared, madam--indeed, I believe I might have conquered my passion--so far as to remain for ever silent--if--if your own words----"
"My words? When have I ever spoken a word that could warrant such an affront?"
"When I advised you to accept Dunkeld--you refused with such impassioned vehemence--you confessed you had a reason."
"And you thought 'twas because I loved another woman's husband--that 'twas your saintly self I cared for? No, sir, 'twas because I swore to Kilrush on his death-bed that I would never belong to another, that our union, of but one tragical hour, should be all I would ever know of wedlock. I belong to him now as I belonged to him then. I love his memory now as I loved him then. That, sir, was my reason. Are you not ashamed of your fatuous self-esteem, which took it for a confession of love? Love for you, the Methodist preacher, the man of God!"