remonstrance, rebuke, the expectation of making her change her
purpose. These things, however, if implied, had not been
expressed; and now our young lady, strangely enough, began to
resent her visitor's remarkable self-control. There was a dumb
misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of
his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation
rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a
woman is angry when she has been in the wrong. She was not in the
wrong; she had fortunately not that bitterness to swallow; but,
all the same, she wished he would denounce her a little. She had
wished his visit would be short; it had no purpose, no propriety;
yet now that he seemed to be turning away she felt a sudden
horror of his leaving her without uttering a word that would give
her an opportunity to defend herself more than she had done in
writing to him a month before, in a few carefully chosen words,
to announce her engagement. If she were not in the wrong,
however, why should she desire to defend herself? It was an
excess of generosity on Isabel's part to desire that Mr. Goodwood
should be angry. And if he had not meanwhile held himself hard it
might have made him so to hear the tone in which she suddenly
exclaimed, as if she were accusing him of having accused her:
"I've not deceived you! I was perfectly free!"

"Yes, I know that," said Caspar.

"I gave you full warning that I'd do as I chose."

"You said you'd probably never marry, and you said it with such a
manner that I pretty well believed it."