Then you will have time to get quite strong, and also you will be able to see whether it is not possible for you to live here. Here is your aunt—it is natural and right that you should be with her. She has been made your guardian by your father. Do you not bow to his directions."
"Mr. Coppinger, I cannot stay here."
"I am at a disadvantage," he exclaimed. "Man always is when carrying on a contest with a woman. Stay—stay here and listen to me." He put out his hand and pressed her back into the chair, for she was about to rise. "Listen to what I say. You do not know—you cannot know—how near death you and I—yes, you and I were, chained together." His deep voice shook. "You and I were on the face of the cliff. There was but one little strip, the width of my hand"—he held out his palm before her—"and that was not secure. It was sliding away under my feet. Below was death, certain death—a wretched death. I held you. That little chain tied us two us two together. All your life and mine hung on was my broken arm and broken collar-bone. I held you to me with my right arm and the chain. I did not think we should live. I thought that together—chained together, I holding you—so we would die—so we would be found—and my only care, my only prayer was, if so, that so we might be washed to sea and sink together, I holding you and chained to you, and you to me. I prayed that we might never be found; for I thought if rude hands were laid on us that the chain would be unloosed, my arm unlocked from about you, and that we should be carried to separate graves. I could not endure that thought. Let us go down together bound, clasped together—into the depths of the deep sea, and there rest. But it was not to be so. I carried you over that stage of infinite danger. An angel or a devil—I cannot say which—held me up. And then I swore that never in life should you be loosed from me, as I trusted that in death we should have remained bound together. See!" He put his hand to her head and drew a lock of her golden hair and wound it about his hand and arm. "You have me fast now—fast in a chain of gold—of gold infinitely precious to me—infinitely strong—and you will cast me off, who never thought to cast you off when tied to you with a chain of iron. What say you? Will you stand
