"As I do for your entreaties. You cannot harm me."
"No," he said; "but I can harm those you love."
She smiled, and moved to the door.
"Stay," he said. "For their sakes, remain and hear me to the end."
She paused.
"You speak of shame," he said, "and fear it as naught. You do not know what it means, and—and—I forget the fearful words that stained your lips. But there are others, those you love, for whom shame means death—worse than death."
She looked at him with a smile of contemptuous disbelief. She did not believe one word of the vague threat, not one word.
"Believe me," he said, "there hangs above the heads of those you love a shame as deadly and awful as that sword which hung above the head of Damocles. It hangs by a single thread which I, and I alone, can sever. Say but the word and I can cast aside that shame. Turn from me to him—to him—and I cut the thread and the sword falls!"
Stella laughed scornfully.
"You have mistaken your vocation," she said. "You were intended for the stage, Mr. Adelstone. I regret that I have no further time to waste upon your efforts. Permit me to go."