Whilst you deny me, you receive this fellow Blake--a London night-scourer, a broken gamester who has given his creditors leg-bail, and who woos you that with your fortune he may close the doors of the debtor's gaol that's open to receive him." "This is unworthy in you," she exclaimed, her tone indignant--so indignant that he experienced his first pang of jealousy.
"It would be were I his rival," he answered quietly.

"But I am not.

I have saved you from becoming the prey of such as he by forcing you to marry me." "That I may become the prey of such as you, instead," was her retort.
He looked at her a moment, smiling sadly.

Then, with pardonable self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now compared himself, "Surely," said he, "it is better to become the prey of the lion than the jackal." "To the victim it can matter little," she answered, and he saw the tears gathering in her eyes.
Compassion moved him.

It rose in arms to batter down his will, and in a weaker man had triumphed.