“And before she answers,” said Ned, “she may take my word, and set the two to choose from. Last night, Miss Ess, I saw a woman come from this door at daybreak, and I saw Steve Knight, and I heard them speak, and I heard her promise to be here to-night. That I will swear to. I brought you here to-night knowing the woman would be here. Whether I am right or not, you can judge for yourself.”
“Steve,” Ess said in a voice half choked with sobs, “tell me it isn’t true. Tell me it’s all a mistake. Let us see who is in there. Stevie, can’t you see how you’re hurting me? Can’t you see how my love is fighting to believe you, and you won’t let it? Have you none of the love left for me that my heart is craving and aching for? Steve, Steve.”
“Your love must fight for its own hand, Ess,” said Steve, sternly. “I can give you no help.”
“You can give me no help, Steve?” she cried wonderingly. “No help?”
“I think we may go,” said Ned Gunliffe. “There is no more to be said, is there?”
A cold doubt was springing up, and flooding and chilling her heart. She made a last effort to choke it back. “Tell me there was no woman with you last night—that there is no one else you love——”
Ned Gunliffe interrupted her. “For God’s sake, do not lower yourself any more to that man,” he cried passionately. “I cannot stand by and listen to it; and remember there is another woman there listening to it.”
His words caught her and held her rigid, her face pale, and her fingers gripped and shaking on the riding switch she carried.
“A last word,” she said hoarsely. “Can you deny all he has said? Is it true? Yes or No?”
Steve stood silent, and swiftly the chill waters of doubt were swept away in a boiling surge of rage and shame. She drew herself erect, and her voice vibrated with scorn and passion. “I can go then? I can tell myself that I have sunk to being merely another of your conquests—that, even as you held me in your arms, you were smiling to yourself to think I had been caught as easily as any of them—that you went with my kisses hot on your lips straight to another woman—that wherever I go I am to be pointed and laughed at behind my back as one more of Fly-by-Night’s girls. Oh, I could hate myself, even as I hate you.”