"Marry that creature?
Father, you don't know me." "By God, I know myself," retorted Sir George, "and I say--" "Now hear me, father," she interrupted in a manner that silenced even him.

She bent forward, resting one fair hand upon the table, while she held out her other arm bared to the elbow.

"Hear what I say and take it for the truth as if it had come from Holy Writ.

I will open the veins in this arm and will strew my blood in a gapless circle around Haddon Hall so that you shall tread upon it whenever you go forth into the day or into the night before I will marry the drunken idiot with whom you would curse me.

Ay, I will do more.