She raised a startled face. "Com... compromise myself?" she echoed. "Oh!" It was a cry of indignation.
"What else?" quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.
"Mistress Horton was.., was with me," she panted, her voice quivering as on the brink of tears.
"'Tis unfortunate you should have separated," he condoled.
"But.., but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that... I came to you? You will keep my secret?"
"Secret!" said he, his eyebrows raised. "'Tis already the talk of the servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater."
Air failed her Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.
The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his nervous grasp.
"Ruth, Ruth!" he cried, and his voice was for once unsteady. "Give it no thought! I love you, Ruth. If you'll but heed that, no breath of scandal can hurt you."
She swallowed hard. "As how?" she asked mechanically.
He bowed low over her hand--so low that his face was hidden from her.
"If you will do me the honour to become my wife..." he began, but got no further, for she snatched away her hand, her cheeks crimsoning, her eyes aflame with indignation. He stepped back, crimsoning too. She had dashed the gentleness from his mood. He was angered now and tigerish.
"Oh!" she panted. "It is to affront me! Is this the time or place..."
He cropped her flow of indignant speech ere it was well begun. He caught her in his arms, and held her tight, and so sudden was the act, so firm his grip that she had not the thought or force to struggle.
"All time is love's time, all places are love's place," he told her, his face close to her own. "And of all time and places the present ever preferable to the wise--for life is uncertain and short at best. I bring you worship, and you answer me with scorn. But I shall prevail, and you shall come to love me in very spite of your own self."
She threw back her head, away from his as far as the bonds he had cast about her would allow. "Air! Air!" she panted feebly.