She rose the next moment, and continued in a low, hard, changed voice:
"But love and hate lie close together; take care, and do not make me hate you, for if you do I shall be pitiless as I have been pitiful, cruel as I have been fond. I, who have been ready all these years to shield you with my life—I shall be the first to betray you to the laws you have cheated, if you turn my love to hate. Ned! Ned! stop and think before it is too late!"
She pressed both hands upon her heart, as if to stay by main force its tumultuous beating. Her limbs tottered beneath her. Her face was like death. Her life's blood might have mingled with the torrent of her eloquence!
"You are beside yourself," said her husband, who had listened like a stone; "otherwise you would remember that tall talk never yet answered with me. And yet—yet I am sorry for you—so poor, so ragged, so thin—" His voice suddenly softened, and he felt with his hand in his pocket. "See here! take these twenty pounds. It's a big lump of all I have; but 'twill buy you a new dress and some good food, and make you decent for a bit, and if I had more to spare, upon my soul you should have it!"
Elizabeth Ryan snatched the notes from her husband's hand, crumpled them savagely, and flung them at his feet; with a wild sweep of her arm she tore off her bonnet, as though it nursed the fire within her brain, and coils of dark, disordered hair fell down about her shoulders. For one moment she stood glaring fixedly at her husband, and then fell heavily to the ground.
"She has fainted," said Miles, not without pity, and bending over her. "Bring her to, then lead her away. Take her back; she must not see me again."
Pound knelt down, and quietly pocketed the crumpled notes; then he raised the senseless head and fanned the ashy face, looking up meanwhile and saying:
"Meet me here to-morrow night at ten; I will come alone."
"For the last time, then."
"I am agreeable; but it will rest with you."