Her face was pale, but her eyes blazed and never had he felt so strongly the tie of blood that united them as he did while she stood there waiting for Abel's accusations with a gesture which appeared to fling them back in disdain.
"I might have known 'twas all fool's play with you--I might have known you had flirted too much to settle down to an honest love," said Abel, breathing hard between his word as if each one were torn from him with a physical wrench at his heart.

In losing his self-possession he had lost his judgment as well, and, grasping something of his love from the sincerity of his emotion, Gay made another ineffectual effort to present the situation in a fairer light.
"If you would only listen, my good fellow--if you would only let me explain things---" he began.
"Will you be quiet ?" said Molly a second time, and then facing him passionately she threw him a gesture of dismissal.

"If you want to please me, you will go." "And leave you alone with him ?" She laughed.

"Do you think I'm afraid of an angry man, or that I've never seen one before ?" With that he obeyed her, turning from time to time on his way over the meadow to make sure that she did not need his support.

In spite of the utter unreasonableness of the affair, in some unaccountable way his sympathies were on the side of the miller.