"But I don't suspect," she said. "The others suspect. I—know."
He received her words in silence. She saw his face as through a shifting vapour, very pale, very determined, with eyes of terrible intensity dominating her own.
Half mechanically she repeated herself. It was as if that devilish thrumming in her brain compelled her. "The others suspect. I—know."
"I see," he said at last. "And nothing I can say will make any difference?"
"Oh, no!" she made answer, and scarcely knew that she spoke, so cold and numb had she become. "How could it—now?"
He looked at her, and suddenly he saw that to which his own suffering had momentarily blinded him. He saw her utter weakness. With a swif passionate movement he caught her to him. For a second or two he held her so, strained against his heart, then almost fiercely he turned her face up to his own and kissed the stiff white lips.
"Be it so then!" he said, and in his voice was a deep note as though he challenged all the powers of evil. "You are mine—and mine you will remain."
She did not resist him though the touch of his lips was terrible to her. Only as they left her own, she turned her face aside. Very strangely that savage lapse of his had given her strength.
"Physically—perhaps—but only for a little while," she said gaspingly. "And in spirit, never—never again!"
"What do you mean?" he said, his arms tightening about her.