When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
expression in scathing words of denunciation.
The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.
But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.
James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar.
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