Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/152

 BOUGHT AND SOLD.

Cruel Coppinger remained brooding in the place where he had been standing, and as he stood there his face darkened. He was a man of imperious will and violent passions; a man unwont to curb himself; accustomed to sweep out of his path whoever or whatever stood between him and the accomplishment of his purpose; a man who never asked himself whether that purpose were good or bad. He had succumbed, in a manner strange and surprising to himself, to the influence of Judith—a sort of witchery over him that subdued his violence and awed him into gentleness and modesty. But when her presence was withdrawn the revolt of the man's lawless nature began. Who was this who had dared to oppose her will to his a mere child of eighteen. Women were ever said to be a perverse generation, and loved to domineer over men; and man was weak to suffer it. So thinking, chafing, he had worked himself into a simmering rage when Miss Trevisa entered the hall, believing it to be empty. Seeing him, she was about to withdraw, when he shouted to her to stay.

"I beg your pardon for intruding, sir; I am in quest of my niece. Those children keep me in a whirl like a teetotum."

"Your niece is gone."

"Gone! where to?"

"Back—I suppose to that old fool, Menaida. He is meet to be a companion for her and that idiot, her brother; not I—I am to be spurned from her presence."

Miss Trevisa was surprised, but she said nothing. She knew his moods.

"Stand there, Mother Dunes!" said Coppinger, in his anger and humiliation, glad to have some one on whom he could pour out the lava that boiled up in his burning