He remained with his back turned upon her, motionless as a statue.
"And so—and so—" Her eyes came swiftly back to the present and saw him only. The horror in them had become vivid, anguished. She rose and stretched an accusing finger towards him. "That was why you ended her life!" she said. "It was—to save—your own!"
He wheeled round at that and faced her with that in his eyes which she had never before seen there—a look that sent the blood to her heart. "By Heaven, Olga," he said, "you go—rather far!"
He came towards her slowly. There was something terrible about him at that moment, something that held her fettered and dumb before him, though—so great was her horror—she would have given all she had to turn and flee.
He halted before her, looking down into her face with a curious intentness. "You really believe that?" he said. "You can't conceive such a thing as this—utterly and inexcusably wrong as I admit it to be—you can't conceive it to have been done from a motive of mercy?"
She shrank away from him as from a thing unclean. The impulse to escape was still strong upon her, urging her to a wild resistance. She met the pitiless eyes that watched her like a creature at bay. "You never did anything in mercy yet!" she said. "There is no mercy in you!"
"Indeed!" he said, and uttered a brief, grating laugh that made her shudder. "In that case, I'm afraid I can't help you any further. I'm at the end of my resources."
Olga drew herself together with a supreme effort, mustering all her strength. "It is the end of everything," she said. "I can never marry you now. I never want to see you again."
He met her look implacably, with eyes that seemed to beat down her own.
"I have told you that I won't submit to that," he said.
She caught her breath with a convulsive movement of protest. Perhaps never before had she so clearly realized the ruthlessness of the man and his strength.