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What do you mean by facing me at all?" he roared, shaking his fist within an inch of Capitola's little pug nose. "I am here because you sent for me, sir," was Cap's unanswerable rejoinder. "Here because I sent for you! humph! humph! humph! and come dancing and smiling into my room as if you had not kept me awake all the live-long night yes, driven me within an inch of brain fever!
"Yes, miss, in one minute," said Pitapat; and to Capitola's unspeakable horror the little maid stooped down and felt along under the side of the bed, from the head post to the foot post, until she put her hands upon the slippers and brought them forth!
At his command she gave him all the information he required, not even withholding the fact of Capitola's strange story of having seen the apparition of the pale-faced lady in her chamber, together with the subsequent discovery of the loss of her ring. Colonel Le Noir sternly reprimanded his domestic manager for her neglect of his orders and dismissed her from his presence.
He longed to catch that little savage to his bosom and have her at his mercy. The aversion she had exhibited toward him only stimulated his passion. Craven Le Noir, among his other graces, was gifted with inordinate vanity. He did not in the least degree despair of over-coming all Capitola's dislike to his person and inspiring her with a passion equal to his own.
And this was the course of his thought: "Ira Warfield and Marah Rocke are here in the same town brought hither upon the same errand to-morrow to meet in the same court-room! And yet not either of them suspects the presence of the other! Mrs. Rocke does not know that in Capitola's uncle she will behold Major Warfield! He does not foresee that in Clara's matronly friend he will behold Marah Rocke!
He was the victim of constitutional ennui that yielded to nothing but the exhilaration of Capitola's company; that was the mystery of his love for her, and doubtless the young Creole would have proposed for Cap, had he not thought it too much trouble to get married, and dreaded the bustle of a bridal.
He laughed a loud, crackling laugh, and said that was all true, but that he, for his part, never had intended to harm a hair of Capitola's head; that he had taken a fancy to the girl when he had first seen her, and had only wanted to carry her off and force her into a marriage with himself; that he had pretended to consent to her death only for the purpose of saving her life.
And then, with a deep bow, he left her, mounted his horse and rode on his way. He did not believe that Capitola was more than half in earnest, or that any girl in Capitola's circumstances would do such a mad thing as to refuse the position he offered her.
Why was her breath drawn hard and laboriously through clenched teeth and livid lips? That note was couched in the most insulting terms. Capitola's first impulse was to rend the paper to atoms and grind those atoms to powder beneath her heel. But a second inspiration changed her purpose. "No no no! I will not destroy you, precious little note!
"I will set out with you this very morning, if you wish, as I am on leave. What! To hasten to the release of Capitola's mother, I would set out at midnight and ride straight on for a week!" "Ah! there is no need of such extravagant feats of travel. It is now ten o'clock; if we start within an hour we can reach the 'Calm Retreat' by eleven o'clock to-night."
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