"The kindest and best friend that a miserable woman ever had," retorted the woman fiercely, "not a word against the Major. I won't hear a word, I tell you. What he does is right."
"Not in shutting up Mavis."
"She is mad, I tell you; mad and dangerous." Bellaria came close to where Gerald was sitting and looked down into his face with a determined expression. "On learning what I did learn from Mavis I came up at once to tell Major Rebb, so that he might stop it."
"I fear Major Rebb will find it somewhat difficult to stop it. He is not the Ruler of the Earth, so far as I know."
"He is my ruler," cried Bellaria grandiloquently.
"So I should think, when the mere wish to give him information makes you risk----"
"Risk what? Risk what?" she demanded, quivering.
Haskins shrugged his square shoulders. "Your life, for all I know."
She stood looking at him with clenched hands, the expression on her worn face hovering between terror and defiance. "You talk of what you do not understand," she said, breathing hard.
"Quite right: but I should like to understand."