"You always were cruel at heart--even in the days when you loved me." Sir Eustace's lips became a single, hard line.

His whole strength was bent to the task of subduing her, and he meant it to be as brief a struggle as possible.
He said nothing whatever therefore, and so passed his only opportunity of winning the conflict by any means save naked force.
To Isabel in her torment that night was the culmination of sorrows.

For years this brother who had once been all the world to her had held aloof, never seeking to pass the barrier which her widowed love had raised between them.

He had threatened many times to take the step which now at last he had taken; but always Scott had intervened, shielding her from the harshness which such a step inevitably involved.

And by love he had never sought to prevail.