I remember once that he kicked at a coal which had fallen from the fire
and lay on the hearth, and he frowned heavily.
"I ought to have been there, Bawn," he said, "and it isn't that I was
afraid. Good Lord! I should think not. You would like me just as well
with my beauty spoilt in such a cause. But it is that you make a coward
of me, little girl. When I think that anything might happen now to
prevent our marriage it makes me sweat with fear. Else I would have
risked my life over and over again, and not have cared two straws about
it."
"I know you are brave," I said, at which he looked pleased and said that
it was the first kind word I had given him.
In these days he did not force his caresses upon me as much as he did at
first, but used to call me his little nun, and say in his usual
boastful way that he would make me in time eager for that from which I
turned away now. Every day as our marriage came nearer I dreaded it
more, and felt as if I must run away to the ends of the earth rather
than endure it; but when I looked at my grandfather's face I knew there
was no help for me.
The marriage was fixed for the 20th of December, and I could see that he
was nearly as impatient for it as my bridegroom.
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