You are very busy. You have every excuse. Gradually, she
will think no more about you--if it be true that she is nothing to you.
You have your choice, sir! Either your promise, or I return by the next
packet to Albany."
But Hamilton, always considerate of women, and despising the weakness
and brutality which permits a man to slink out of an amour, would not
retreat, and Betsey finally settled herself in her chair, and said, with
unmistakable determination:--
"Very well, go now. I shall not move from this room--this chair--until
you return."
Hamilton caught his hat and left the house. Although he was possessed by
the one absorbing desire to win back his wife, who had never been so
dear as to-day, when for the first time she had placed him at arm's
length and given him a thorough fright, still his brain, accustomed to
see all sides of every question at once, and far into the future, spoke
plainly of the hour when he would regret the loss of Mrs. Croix. He
might forget her for weeks at a time, but he always reawakened to a
sense of her being with a glowing impression that the world was more
alive and fair.
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