"You're heartless, I do believe."
"You make up for it, if I am."
"I suppose you're shocked because I kissed him. Did you tell David? I lay he didn't pull a very long face about it. But what's come over me? To think of me talking in this loud, wild way! Forgive me, Rhoda. I meant nothing. You can't help being what you are, and feeling what you feel, any more than I can. I'm not myself to-night. I shall miss him cruel, and I don't care who knows it."
The other kept silence. Her colour had gone and her breast was rising and falling rapidly. Anger put a strain on her lungs and called for air.
"Oh, Rhoda," cried Madge feebly, "why didn't you take him? Nobody will ever love you like that again; and nobody will ever understand you so well as Bartley did. You were a fool--a fool not to take him. Now look at it--your life all useless and nowhere to turn, unless you come to Tavistock with us. Think better of it even now. Go to him to-morrow; keep him here afore 'tis too late and he's gone."
Then the other rose to her feet, and spoke slowly, and crushed the slighter creature for ever.
"So you've sunk to that! You can dare to sit there and say that openly to me. I'm to marry him--I'm to drag myself through the dirt of that man's life, so that you can have him always at your elbow!!"
Margaret stared, and in her turn grew pale.
"What are you saying or thinking?" she cried. "Are you out of your mind?"
"If I am, I've had enough to make me. But I'm sane enough--for my brother's sake. I've kept sane all these cruel, cursed months, while you've gone your way, and forgotten yourself, and disgraced his name. Hear me, I say! Don't you shout, for I can shout louder than you. What I tell be God's truth; and if you don't confess it, I'll do it for you. D'you think I don't know what men are? Nine in ten be of the same beastly pattern; and this man's the worst of all, for he's a liar and a thief, and he came to me with his false tales, but his mind was always running on you; and he came to David and pretended to be his friend and--and--"