A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name, could hardly have escaped him.
“He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough to listen to him . I know it, as well as he does.”
“ Mr. Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,” said Lizzie, proudly, “in connection with the death and with the memory of my poor father.”
“No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, Mr. Eugene Wrayburn.”
“He is nothing to you, I think,” said Lizzie, with an indignation she could not repress.
“Oh yes, he is. There you mistake. He is much to me.”
“What can he be to you?”
“He can be a rival to me among other things,” said Bradley.
“ Mr. Headstone,” returned Lizzie, with a burning face, “it is cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it makes me able to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and that no other living creature has anything to do with the effect you have produced upon me for yourself.”
His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked up again, moistening his lips. “I was going on with the little I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, all the while you were drawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It made no difference in me. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went on. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now. With Mr. Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast out.”