“If he liked you, why did he give you up?”
“He did n’t give me up.”
“What do you mean, please?” asked Bernard, staring back at her.
“I sent him away—I refused him,” said Angela.
“Yes; but you thought better of it, and your mother had persuaded you that if he should ask you again, you had better accept him. Then it was that he backed out—in consequence of what I said to him on his return from England.”
She shook her head slowly, with a strange smile.
“My poor Bernard, you are talking very wildly. He did ask me again.”
“That night?” cried Bernard.
“The night he came back from England—the last time I saw him, until to-day.”
“After I had denounced you?” our puzzled hero exclaimed, frowning portentously.