"Yes—yes!"
"It is all gone!"
"Gone?"
"All! There is nothing left," says Margaret, pale as ashes.
"Gone!" Tita repeats the word once or twice, as a child might, trying to learn a new syllable; she seems a little stunned. Then suddenly her whole face grows bright; it wakes into a new life as it were. "Is it all gone?" asks she.
"Yes, my dearest girl, I am afraid so. But you must not be unhappy,
Tita; I——"
"Oh, unhappy!" cries the girl, in a high clear tone, one full of fresh, sweet courage and delight. She walks straight up to Rylton. "Now I can leave you!" says she.
If she had been planning a revenge, she could hardly have arranged it better. Rylton looks back at her. He is silent, but she reads the disturbance of his soul in his firmly shut mouth, and the little, quick, flittering frown that draws his brows together in momentary rapidity. He had thought many things of her, but that she should hail with rapture the ruin that seemed to give her a chance of escape from him—that thought had not been his.
In a moment, however, he has pulled himself together. He tells himself he sees at once the right course to pursue. In other words, he has decided on conquering her.
"You shall certainly not do that," says he icily.