"Do not touch me," returns he, harshly, the vein of brutality in him coming to the surface as he pushes her from him and with slight violence unclasps her clinging fingers.
The action is in itself sufficient, but the look that accompanies it—betraying as it does even more disgust than hatred—stings her to self-control. Slowly she rises to her feet. As she does so, a spasm, a contraction near her heart, causes her to place her hand involuntarily against her side, while a dull gray shadow covers her face.
"You mean," she says, speaking with the utmost difficulty, "that all—is at an end—between us."
"I do mean that," he answers, very white, but determined.
"Then beware!" she murmurs, in a low, choked voice.
CHAPTER XI.
"You stood before me like a thought,
A dream remembered in a dream."
—Coleridge.