Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/99

 eyes than he rose to his feet with every evidence of pain, and, casting the pistol I had lately given him upon the ground, said:

"All right, I am taken; I submit without resistance."

"On the contrary, my friend," I answered angrily, being bitterly disappointed of his character, "you are not taken, other than extremely with your cowardice. You do not care for fighting at close quarters, I observe. Bah!" and I turned my back upon him.

"My benefactress!" he cried, in a strangely altered tone, "my benefactress! What do you here at this place, and at this hour?"

"What did I here before?" I said in scorn. "And why, sir, may I ask, are you not footing it to Scotland, as I ordered you, instead of returning in your tracks? I suppose it is, my gallant, that rather than help yourself, you would choose to throw yourself upon the mercy of a friend, heedless of what degree she is incriminated so long as she can contrive to shield your valuable person. So you submit without resistance, do you?"

He was very white and weary, and his breast was heaving yet with the urgence of his flight, but it pleased me to discover that my speeches stung.

"As you will, madam," he answered, with a head upthrown, but also with a quietude that had a fire underneath, "as you will; but you are a woman and my benefactress, and I bend the knee before you."