Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/125

 "So, Mistress, now that you have got your lover's written promise from the ivy there, you think you can afford to pass by such a humble one as the schoolmaster, but you're mistaken, and I'll trouble you to show me that letter."

The girl's hand went involuntarily to her bosom, where the note in question was securely tucked away, and she answered back clear and straight: "No, Mister Rash, you've no right."

"Right is might, Mistress, as you'll find, and I think we shall be able to come to terms now. I want you to come along with me to the vicarage; Doctor Syn is there, and I've something to say before you both."

"Let us go, then," said Imogene, trying to pass.

"All in good time," returned the schoolmaster, stopping her. "There's no immediate hurry, I think, for the Doctor won't come out of that shuttered room of his till morning, so we can afford to keep him waiting, and I've something to say to you first—alone."

The girl tossed her head impatiently, as if she knew what was coming, but Rash continued:

"A few weeks back I asked you to marry me—I, the esteemed schoolmaster, asked you, the daughter of a criminal; you, whose father was a proved murderer, a dirty pirate hanged publicly at Rye for a filthy tavern crime; you who were born in a Raratonga drinking hell, some half-caste native girl's brat! Ecod! it's laughable! I offered to make you respectable and put your