Her tears
were falling faster than the heavy, isolated drops that fell on her bare
head. But her courage was rising at need, as it always rose, and she was
not too much blinded by tears to see that the boy was getting on the
pony again. She ran to him and caught his sleeve, and turned upon
William Pressley with the reckless fierceness of a gentle creature made
daring in defence of what it loves.
"You are cruel," she said, speaking calmly, steadied by the very
extremity of her excitement and distress. "You have no more heart than a
stone. You feel nothing that does not touch yourself. You have always
been unkind to David. But you shall not do this. I will prevent
you--defy you. You shall not send him to his death for some narrow,
tyrannical notion. He is like my brother. I love him as if he were. And
I wouldn't allow you to treat a stranger so. It's inhuman! It shall not
be!" panting, and clinging to the boy.
William Pressley stared at her as if he thought she had suddenly lost
her senses. Could this be Ruth speaking like that--and to himself?
Instinctively he threw into his voice the whole weight of his heavy,
cold rage, which had never yet failed to crush all life and spirit out
of her most fiery resistance.
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