"I am not a coward—"
"Call yourself what you please! I say, before we can afford to leave this place, the youth will be gone out of your face, the brightning from your eyes—you'll be an old woman, Sybil."
She did not appear moved by his threats, and, as was customary with him when thwarted, he began to pass into a violent rage. She did not answer the harsh words and maledictions which he heaped upon her; but once, when he made a movement as if to give her a blow, as had often happened before, she turned upon him with something in her face from which he shrunk in spite of himself.
"Don't do that!" she exclaimed, in an awful whisper; "I warn you never to attempt that again!"
The victory was more nearly won to her than it had been for many a day. Yates dropped his hand and turned to go out.
"Well, let every thing slide," he said; "this comes of trusting a woman with secrets! I must sit in my chair and see sixty thousand dollars good slip out of my hands, and Ralph Hinchley go by without lifting a finger."
Sybil sprung forward and clutched his arm; the face she bent toward him was like that of a corpse.
"Speak that name again," she whispered; "speak it."
"Ralph Hinchley," he repeated, pushing her aside with a feeling like absolute fear. "Confound you, what do you look like that for?"
Sybil still held him fast, and her voice rung out hollow and unnatural: