In a moment the locket was lifted from my chest, and forced open with a metallic click.
“Ah!—Ah!”
She let the open locket drop from her fingers on my bare throat.
Instantly it was clutched up again. I could picture the frenzied gaze of jealousy and hate in those burning eyes of deepest violet; I could actually feel the passionate breathing from between the clenched teeth of whitest ivory.
“Miserable child!” she hissed, the hand that held the locket trembling so that I could feel it against my neck. “So you have robbed me of him!”
She paused, and then added, forcing out each word with a passion of distilled hate——
“But you shall never have him! He shall be mine! Mine! Mine, in the grave!”