"You know I'll do it," Garth volunteered. "You know that, because there's nothing I wouldn't do. I told you so yesterday."
"If you hadn't, I should not have sent for you to-day."
"I wish you wanted me to kill somebody for you." (She guessed, by the fierce gleam in his eyes, what "body"!) "I'd go to 'the chair' singing."
"Oh!" she laughed feebly. "It's not as bad as that." (But wasn't it?) "You—you said several things here yesterday afternoon. One was, that you——"
"That I love you! Was that what you mean?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's the same to-day. Only more so."
"Even after—I'm afraid I was very selfish and thoughtless. I wasn't as nice to you as I ought to have been, after I'd got you to come, and—and——"
"You weren't nice to me at all," Garth gave her the truth bluntly. "I went away trying to hate you, but I didn't bring it off. Hate, if it starts from love, is a good deal like a boomerang, I guess. It comes back to what it was born from. And the friction stirs up the flame till it's hotter. Now, tell me that thing I can do for you. Because the quicker I hear what it is, the quicker I can set about it."
Marise threw up her head and drew in a long breath. She might have done the same if she had come, with a running jump, to the edge of a precipice.