19/29 "I knew these tales concerning me were abroad, and I held them in the same contempt as I hold their utterer. But he went further, Rose: he poisoned your brother's mind against me, and he stirred up in him the slumbering rancour that in my father's time was want to lie between our houses. To-day Peter came to me with the clear intent to make a quarrel. He affronted me as no man has ever dared." She cried out at that, her already great alarm redoubled. He smiled. |