And again inexplicably she shrank. There was that about him which terrified her more than any uttered menace.
"What are you going to do?" she said nervously. "Why—why have you followed me?"
He answered her in a tone which she deemed scoffing. It was too dark for her to see his face.
"You can hardly expect me to show my hand at this stage," he said. "You never showed me yours."
It was true, and she found no word to say against it. But none the less, she was horribly afraid. She felt herself to be utterly at his mercy, and was instinctively aware that he was in no mood to spare her.
"I can't go on playing, Pat," she said, after a moment, her voice very low. "I have no cards left to play."
"In that case you are beaten," he said, with that doggedness which she was beginning to know as a part of his fighting equipment. "Do you own it?"
She hesitated.
"Do you own it?" he insisted sternly.
And, yielding to a sudden impulse that overwhelmed all reason, she threw herself unreservedly upon his mercy.