"You barricade yourself as though I were some loathsome monster! Are you afraid of me?"
"What is there left to fear? Have you spared any exertion to accomplish that which you believe would overwhelm me with sorrow?"
"You cannot forgive my rejection of the overtures for a compromise wrung from you by extremity of dread, when I started to Dakota?"
"That rejection freed me from a self-imposed, galling promise; and hence I forgive all, because of the failure of your journey."
"Suppose I have not failed?"
She caught her breath, and the color in her cheeks flickered.
"Had you succeeded, I should not have been allowed so long the comparative mercy of suspense."
"Am I so wantonly cruel, think you, that I gloat over your sufferings as a Modoc at sight of the string of scalps dangling at his pony's neck?"
"When the spirit of revenge is unleashed, Tiberius becomes a law unto himself."
He leaned forward, and his voice was freighted with tenderness that he made no attempt to disguise.