"Constance Wardour, you love Clifford Heath."
"This is too much! This is horrible!" She makes a mad effort to free herself from his grasp.
The question comes like a taunt, a declaration of her helplessness. Coming from him, it is maddening. It restores her courage; it makes her mistress of herself once more.
"Don't repeat that question," she says, flashing upon him a look of defiance.
"I do repeat it!" he goes on wildly. "Go to O'Meara; to whom you please; satisfy yourself that Clifford Heath has a halter about his neck; then come to me, and tell me if you will give yourself as his ransom. I can save him if I will. I will save him, only on one condition. You know what that is."
With a sudden fierce effort she frees herself from his clasp, and stands erect before him, fairly panting with the fierceness of her anger.
"Traitor! monster! Cain! Not to save all the lives of my friends; not to save the world from perdition, would I be your wife! You would denounce the destroyer of that worthless clay below us. You! Before that should happen, to save the world the knowledge that such a monster exists, I will tell the world where the guilt lies, for I know."
Before he can realize the full meaning of her words, the dressing-room door is closed between them, and Frank Lamotte stands gnashing his teeth, beating the air with his hands in a frenzy of rage and despair.
While he stands thus, a step comes slowly up the stairs; he turns to meet the gaze of his father.
"Frank," says Jasper Lamotte, in low, guarded accents, "Come down to the library at once. It is time you knew the truth."