The daughter shivered from head to foot. Helm bore her firmly on, released her at the threshold. She cried, “George, let me stay! Please, dear! Let me talk with both of you. You are both so hard——”
Her voice had been faltering, for again he had fixed her gaze with those kind, inflexible eyes of his. She became silent. In the hall he kissed her, released her. Then he returned to the sitting-room, closing the door behind him. He said to Clearwater, quietly, almost gently:
“You had better tell your corporation to yield. If you don’t, it will break her heart, as you see.”
“We will not yield!” cried Clearwater, shaking his fist in Helm’s face. “And after you have actually done your dastardly work, she will hate you. You think you own her, body and soul. You’ll find out afterward. She will hate you, she will leave you.”
“She will neither leave me, nor hate me.”
There was in his voice the finality not of mere conviction, but of truth itself. For he knew—as only those who really love and really are loved know—what he and his wife were to each other—the union that is a fusion which not even death can dissolve.
After a pause he went on:
“Shall I tell the attorney-general that formal notice of yielding will come to-morrow?”
Silence. Then Clearwater sullenly:
“Day after to-morrow.”