“You shall answer me. Who or what is it that has come between us?”
Again he waited for her to speak; but she stood mute with bent head.
His clenched hands dropped at his side.
“You’ll not answer me,” he said, in a cold, hard voice. “Well, be it so; go your way, and I’ll go mine. But—I shall not give you up. You’re killing yourself with hard work; it is I who force you to it. I am your master. You can’t escape me!”
“You are not my master!” she said wildly. “I’m free—free!”
He turned without another look at her, his savage heel grinding an innocent clover blossom into the mud of the road.
VIII
Barbara stole softly down the creaking stair in the gray obscurity of dawn, her shoes in one hand, a smoking candle in the other. There was much to be done, much to be thought of, and Jimmy must not wake up to hinder for two full hours yet.