At last, when she could endure no longer, huskily, with tremendous effort, she spoke. “Do you want—to kill him?”
He raised his head slowly and looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot and the veins of his temples visibly throbbing, but the rest of his face was ghastly white.
He looked at her, and she felt a quick, piercing pain at her heart that made her catch her breath.
“I have wanted to kill him for years,” he said. “Do you value his life? If not——”
It was terrible, it was monstrous; but it was real. He was asking her—actually asking her, as a victorious gladiator in the arena—for permission to despatch his victim. And even as he spoke, she saw his right hand move towards the throat of the prostrate man.
She cried out wildly at the sight, in an anguish of horror. “Arthur, no—no—no! That’s murder! Arthur,—stop!”
“He is worse than a murderer,” Arthur said in the same fatalistic tone.
“Ah, no!” she made gasping answer. “And you! And you!”
“And—you!” he said, with terrible emphasis.
She broke in upon him desperately, for the need was great. “He has done me no harm. Let him go! You must—you must let him go.”