But even yet he would not give up. The muscles of his arm bulged, his neck sinews stood out and his eyes glared red and wrathful in the effort he was making to be his own master. But slowly, with jerking movements, impelled by that inexorable force, his hand moved across the desk, sought to stay itself upon book or inkwell, then, at last completely overmastered, took pen and wrote—wrote the words sent down to it by that dominating power that had taken possession of his will.
He glowered at the letter as it lay before him in its envelope, sealed, stamped and addressed to “Miss Mildred Annister,” and muttered, “I’ll not let it go! I’ll tear it up! I’ll get the best of him yet!”
At that moment his secretary appeared at his door and asked him concerning the disposition of certain papers. She was putting everything in order, she told him, so that her successor would have no difficulty in beginning the work.
“Can’t you wait a minute?” he snarled at her over his shoulder.
“Oh, dear!” thought Henrietta, shrinking back. “What’s wrong now, I wonder! Well, I’ll be through in ten minutes, and nothing very dreadful can happen in that time.”
Brand rose, swearing angrily, and turned upon her. The affright and consternation in her face maddened him the more.
“Well, what do you want?” he demanded roughly. She repeated what she had said.
“You’re not going to quit today?” he exclaimed, striding back and forth, his heart raging against the letter on his desk and all that it meant.
She reminded him that the time for which she had agreed to remain expired that day. “Haven’t you engaged any one else, Mr. Brand?” she asked, quailing a little as she saw the violent anger that possessed him.
“No! What time have I had to hunt up secretaries? I can’t do without you. You’ll have to stay another week.”