“No harlot could have acted more infamously than you.”
At the lash of the outrage, Leilah, joining her hands, held them to him. “Gulian! You are killing me!”
“It is what you deserve. There are no penalties now for such turpitudes as yours. But, when there were, women like you were beaten with rods, they were lapidated, stoned to death, and death was too good for them; they should have been made to go about, as they afterward were, as you should be, in a yellow wig, in a yellow gown, that even children might point and cry: ‘Shame!’”
The words, which he tore from his mouth, he hurled at her. She cowered before them. On a chair near by she had put her bag. Her wrap had fallen from her. In the church now the hymn had ceased. The ringing of the Elevation was beginning.
“Gulian! As if shame had not cried at me! Gulian, I have been scourged, I have been stoned. If I live, it is to implore of you mercy.”
Her hands, still joined, were still extended, and in her face was an expression of absolute despair. But this martyr attitude seemed to him the most abominable of hypocrisies, and it was with anger refreshed that he lashed her again.
“Mercy? Yes, you want mercy, you, who were merciless in your treachery to me. A sweep would have had more decency, a scullion more heart. I put in your hands my trust, my love, my honour, and you who want mercy dragged them in dirt.”
“Gulian!” Within her now was that invincible need of justice which impels the weakest to protest against the savagery of wrong. “Gulian! When you know!”
“I do know. I know you and your lies, and the infamy of them too well. At Coronado——”