Sabine shook her head.
"No, she was too young and too inexperienced, and he had broken all her ideals, absolutely stunned and annihilated her whole vista of the future. There was no other way but flight. She had to reconstruct her soul alone."
"You do not ask me what became of the owner of Arranstoun—or what he did with his life."
"I know he went to China—but the matter does not interest me. There he probably continued to live and to kill other things—to seize what he wanted and get some physical joy out of existence as usual."
A look of pain now quenched the fire.
"You are very cruel," he said.
"The owner of Arranstoun was very cruel."
"He knows it and is deeply repentant; but he was and is only a very ordinary man."
"No, a savage."
"A savage then, if you will—and one dangerous to provoke too far;" the fire blazed again. "And what do you suppose your friend learned in those five years of men—after she had ceased to exist as the owner of Arranstoun knew her?"