"I surrender. I am at your mercy.... There is in all the world nothing you can ask that I can refuse you."
"You have chosen—finally?" he demanded and he spoke gravely, unwilling that she should fail to understand. "There will be no turning back?"
"You have chosen—not I," she replied, her eyes looking up into his. "But I accept ... your choice ... there will be no turning back."
"You are ready to repudiate, for all time this life ... Eben Tollman ... the undertow? You will be big enough and strong enough to break these shackles?"
"I am ready—" she said falteringly.
"And you will not feel that you have proven a traitor—to the memory of your father?"
That was a hard question to ask, but it must be asked. He felt a shiver run through her body and he saw in her eyes a fleeting expression of torture.
"I am ready," she repeated dully. Somehow he remembered with a shudder hearing a newspaper acquaintance describe an execution. The poor wretch who was the law's victim went to the chair echoing in a colorless monotony words prompted into his ear by the priest at his side. Then he heard her voice again.
"Are you through questioning me, Stuart? Because if you are ... I have something to say."
"I am listening, dearest."