"
"No, Robert; you need hardly say that. Indeed, to speak my own mind,
I think that you need hardly have alluded to it. I might go further,
and say that such an allusion is in itself an insult,--an insult now
repeated after hours of deliberation,--an insult which I will not
endure to have repeated again. If you say another word in any way
suggesting the possibility of improper relations between me and Mr.
Finn, either as to deeds or thoughts, as God is above me, I will
write to both my father and my brother, and desire them to take me
from your house. If you wish me to remain here, you had better be
careful!" As she was making this speech, her temper seemed to rise,
and to become hot, and then hotter, till it glowed with a red heat.
She had been cool till the word insult, used by herself, had conveyed
back to her a strong impression of her own wrong,--or perhaps I
should rather say a strong feeling of the necessity of becoming
indignant. She was standing as she spoke, and the fire flashed from
her eyes, and he quailed before her. The threat which she had held
out to him was very dreadful to him. He was a man terribly in fear
of the world's good opinion, who lacked the courage to go through a
great and harassing trial in order that something better might come
afterwards.
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