"Then perhaps you will explain why you are here!"

"There are visits that must be made, even with the certainty of giving annoyance!" answered Wingfold, rather cheerfully.

"That means you consider yourself justified in forcing your way into my room, before I am dressed, with the simple intention of making yourself disagreeable!"

"If I were here on my own business, you might well blame me! But what would you say to one of your men who told you he dared not go your message for fear of the lightning?"

"I would tell him he was a coward, and to go about his business."

"That, then, is what I don't want to be told!"

"And for fear of being told it, you dare me!"

"Well--you may put it so;--yes."

"I don't like you the worse for your courage. There's more than one man would face half a dozen bush-rangers rather than a woman I know!"

"I believe it. But it makes no extravagant demand on my courage. I am not afraid of _you_. I owe you nothing--except any service worth doing for you!"

"Let that blind down: the sun's putting the fire out."

"It's a pity to put the sun out in such a brutal climate. He does the fire no harm."

"Don't tell _me_!"

"Science says he does not."

"He puts the fire out, I tell you!"

"I do not think so."

"I've seen it with my own eyes. G.o.d knows which is the greater humbug--Science or Religion!--Are you going to pull that blind down?"

Wingfold lowered the blind.

"Now look here!" said Mrs. Wylder. "You're not afraid of me, and I'm not afraid of you!--It's a low trade, is yours."

"What is my trade?"

"What is your trade?--Why, to talk goody! and read goody! and pray goody! and be goody, goody!--Ugh!"

"I'm not doing much of that sort at this moment, any way!" rejoined Wingfold with a laugh.

"You know this is not the place for it!"

"Would you mind telling me which is the place to read a French novel in?"

"Church: there!"

"What would you do if I were to insist on reading a chapter of the Bible here?"

"Look!" she answered, and rising, s.n.a.t.c.hed a saloon-pistol from the chimney-piece, and took deliberate aim at him.

Wingfold looked straight down the throat of the thick barrel, and did not budge.

"--I would shoot you with that," she went on, holding the weapon as I have said. "It would kill you, for I can shoot, and should hit you in the eye, not on the head. I shouldn't mind being hanged for it. Nothing matters now!"

She flung the heavy weapon from her, gave a great cry, not like an hysterical woman, but an enraged animal, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, pulled it out again, and began tearing at it with her teeth.

The pistol fell in the middle of the room. Wingfold went and picked it up.

"I should deserve it if I did," he said quietly, as he laid the pistol on the table. "--But you don't fight fair, Mrs. Wylder; for you know I can't take a pistol with me into the pulpit and shoot you. It is cowardly of you to take advantage of that."

"Well! I like the a.s.surance of you! Do I read so as to annoy any one?"

"Yes, you do. You daren't read aloud, because you would be put out of the church if you did; but you annoy as many of the congregation as can see you, and you annoy me. Why should you behave in that house as if it were your own, and yet shoot me if I behaved so in yours? Is it fair? Is it polite? Is it acting like a lady?"

"It _is_ my house--at least it is my pew, and I will do in it what I please.--Look here, Mr. Wingfold: I don't want to lose my temper with you, but I tell you that pew is mine, as much as the chair you're not ashamed to sit upon at this moment! And let me tell you, after the way _I_'ve been treated, my behaviour don't splash much. When he's brought a woman to my pa.s.s, I don't see G.o.d Almighty can complain of her manners!"

"Well, thinking of him as you do, I don't wonder you are rude!"

"What! You won't curry favour with him?--You hold by fair play? Come now! I call that downright pluck!"

"I fear you mistake me a little."

"Of course I do! I might have known that! When you think a parson begins to speak like a man, you may be sure you mistake him!"

"You wouldn't behave to a friend of your own according to what another person thought of him, would you?"

"No, by Jove, I wouldn't!"

"Then you won't expect me to do so!"

"I should think not! Of course you stick by the church!"

"Never mind the church. She's not my mistress, though I am her servant.

G.o.d is my master, and I tell you he is as good and fair as goodness and fairness can be goodness and fairness!"

"What! Will you drive me mad! I wish he would serve you as he's done me--then we should hear another tune--rather! You call it good--you call it fair, to take from a poor creature he made himself, the one only thing she cared for?"

"Which was the cause of a strife that made of a family in which he wanted to live, a very h.e.l.l upon earth!"

"You dare!" she cried, starting to her feet.

Wingfold did not move.

"Mrs. Wylder," he said, "_dare_ is a word that needn't be used again between you and me. If you dare tell G.o.d that he is a devil, I may well dare tell you that you know nothing about him, and that I do!"

"Say on your honour, then, if he had treated you as he has done me--taken from you the light of your eyes, would you count it fair?

Speak like the man you are."