He assumed a cold manner, although his breast was as a seething caldron, and recommenced.
“You may place, madam, what interpretation you please upon my language; and I am equally at liberty to interpret your conduct.----”
“I deny your right to do any such thing!” she interrupted, vehemently; “you are here unbidden sir. If you bear a message from my brother to me, I ask of you only to deliver it to me--and to leave me; if you have no such message, I request you to depart at once?”
“But----” exclaimed Mark, as if to explain.
“I will hear from you, sir, nothing more than my brother’s words, if you have been entrusted with them,” persisted Lotte, indignantly.
“You shall have them,” said Mark, in a freezing tone; “still, I imagined, as a friend----
“A friend!” roared Mark, with a rather startling emphasis, forgetting his assumed coldness.
“I loved and esteemed your sister, sir, as a friend,” exclaimed Lotte, in a tone of earnest feeling. She bit her lips to repress the sob that gushed up to her throat---“but you----”
“I am answered!” he exclaimed in a low tone as she paused. “I had a weak and foolish fancy that--but it is dissipated, gone--for ever. I see now I stand but in the light of a meddlesome intruder, and have no title to ask from you any explanation of your mysterious conduct.”
“Enough, madam,” he returned in an icy tone. “I have but then to say that your brother having, by means he will himself explain, discovered your abode, will be here to night to see you.”
Mark twisted his hat round and round, looked at the door and gazed wistfully at her, but she stood immoveable, she pressed the infant to her bosom, and she never once raised her eyes to his.
Her face was white as marble, yet he was sure he never saw her look so handsome--so beautifully interesting. Mark lingered. Could she be a guilty creature?
It seemed impossible. Yet that child! coupled with her sudden flight, her continued and inexplicable absence. What other interpretation could he put upon her conduct?
He gave a slight “Hem,” to clear his voice, and then said--
“You will see your brother when he comes, this evening?”
“Why do you ask that question?” she asked, sternly.
“Because,” he returned almost fiercely, “he will not come to you if you wish him not to do so, for then he will know that he should _not_ come.”