"Have you anything more to say?" he asks, an evil look coming into his eyes. Not for a second has he relaxed his hold.
Molly's heart sinks a little lower. Oh! if Tedcastle would only come! yet with a certain bravery she compels herself to return without flinching the gaze of the dark passionate face bent above hers. She knows every limb in her body is trembling, that a deadly sickness is creeping over her, yet by a supreme effort she maintains her calmness.
"Nothing," she answers, quietly, with just a touch of scorn. "I should have thought I had said enough to convince any man. Now will you let me go home? You cannot want to keep me here after what I have said."
"I wonder you are not afraid of me," says Shadwell, who is absolutely beside himself with anger. "Do not put unlimited faith in my forbearance. A worm, you know, will turn. Do you think you can goad a man to desperation and leave him as cool as when you began? I confess I am not made of such stuff. Do you know you are in my power? What is to prevent my killing you here, now, this moment?"
He speaks slowly, as though his breath comes with difficulty, so much has anger overmastered him; yet her eyes have never fallen before his, and he knows, in spite of his words, he has not the smallest mastery over her, he has gained no triumph.
"I wish you were dead," he goes on, in a compressed tone, "and myself too. To be sure, that if you were not mine you would never be another's, has in it a sweetness that tempts me. They say extremes meet. I hardly know, now, where my love for you ends, or where my hatred begins."
His violence terrifies Molly.
"Philip, be generous," she says, laying her hand against his chest with a vain attempt to break from him; "and—and—try to be calm. Your eyes have madness in them. Even if you were to kill me, what good would it do you? And think of the afterward. Oh, what have I ever done to you that you should seek to—to—unnerve me like this?"
"'What have you done?' Shall I tell you? You have murdered me surely as though your knife had entered my heart. You have killed every good thought in me, every desire that might perhaps have had some element of nobleness in it. I was bad enough before I met you, I dare say; but you have made me ten times worse."
"It is all false. I will not listen to you,"—covering her ears with her hands. But he takes them down again, gently but determinedly, and compels her to hear him.