"You shall not dare——" he repeated, as if the words he sought would not come to him.
Beneath his gaze Angelica paled slowly. Her greatest victories had always been achieved through her dumbness; and the instinct which had guided her infallibly in the past did not fail her in this moment, which must have appeared to her as the decisive hour of her destiny. There was but one way in which she could triumph, and this way she chose, not deliberately, but in obedience to some deep design which had its source in the secret motive-power of her nature. The colour of her skin faded to ivory, her long, slender limbs trembled and wavered, and the pathos of her look was intensified into the image of tragedy.
"I tried so hard not to see——" she began, and the next instant she gave a little gasping sob and dropped, like a broken flower, at his feet.
For a second Caroline looked down on her in silence. Then, without stooping, without speaking, she drew her skirt aside, and went out of the room and up the stairs. Her scorn was the scorn of the strong who is defeated for the weak who is victorious.
CHAPTER VII
Courage
WHEN she reached her room, Caroline took off her cap and uniform and laid them smoothly away in her trunk. Then she began packing with deliberate care, while her thoughts whirled as wildly as autumn leaves in a storm. Outwardly her training still controlled her; but beneath her quiet gestures, her calm and orderly movements, she felt that the veneer of civilization had been stripped from the primitive woman. It was as if she had lived years in the few minutes since she had left Angelica lying, lovely and unconscious, on the floor of the library.
She was taking her clothes out of the closet when there was a low knock at her door, and Mammy Riah peered inquiringly into the room.
"Marse David tole me ter come," she said. "Is you gwine away, honey?"
Before she replied, Caroline crossed the floor and closed the door of the nursery. "I am going home on the earliest train in the morning. Will you be sure to order the car?"
The old woman came in and took the clothes out of Caroline's hands. "You set right down, en wait twell I git thoo wid dis yer packin'. Marse David, he tole me ter look atter you de same ez I look atter Letty, en I'se gwine ter do whut he tells me."