"Love me?—like this?—Do you forget I am married?" she gasped, still struggling to escape. "Let me go. I hate you for daring to touch me—to kiss me. I hate you! How dare you do it!" Joyce had never known such terrifying moments, even worse than when the building seemed falling about her ears. The horrors of the night were multiplying a thousandfold, now that the doctor had failed her and gone mad.
Dalton made several efforts to pacify her, thinking he had only to deal with a phase of childishness, but found her unmistakably determined to break away from him.
"Stop it, and listen to me," he said angrily. "You want it all your own way, but it is my turn now. Why did you lead me on and tempt me, if you meant to back out in the end? I could have kissed you twenty times, but refrained for reasons you would not understand. Now when those reasons are finally swept aside and I am ready to be your lover, you pretend to be surprised."
"Surprised! I am horrified! I thought so well of you—I believed you would respect me, not treat me as you might—Mrs. Fox for instance! Let me go, you coward and bully!—I have trusted you and treated you as a brother—for this?—you unspeakable cad!"
Dalton released her instantly, and she burst into tears, crying as though her heart would break. "Honor warned me, but I would not listen!" he heard her say amid her sobs.
"What did Honor warn you about?" he asked sternly.
"She said," Joyce sobbed, "to go 'easy with my favours'—that you were 'a man—like most——'"
"Did Honor say that? and why?"
"Because—she thought I was being foolish to—to become so—friendly—with you—when I am a married woman. She was right! I have been a fool!" A fresh outburst of weeping.
"Did she say that because of her contempt for me, or because you are a wife?" he pressed.