Bennett was standing between her and the door. He did not move. Very gravely he said:
"Don't. Please don't bring it—to that."
Lloyd flashed a look at him, her eyes wide, exclaiming:
"You don't mean—you don't dare—"
"I tell you again that I mean to carry my point."
"And I tell you that I shall not leave my patient."
Bennett met her glance for an instant, and, holding her gaze with his, answered but two words. Speaking in a low voice and with measured slowness, he said:
"You—shall."
There was a silence. The two stood there, looking straight into one another's eyes, their mutual opposition at its climax. The seconds began to pass. The conflict between the man's aggression and the woman's resistance reached its turning point. Before another word should be spoken, before the minute should pass, one of the two must give ground.
And then it was that Lloyd felt something breakdown within her, something to which she could not put a name. A mysterious element of her character, hitherto rigid and intact, was beginning at last to crumble. Somewhere a breach had been opened; somewhere the barrier had been undermined. The fine steadfastness that was hers, and that she had so dearly prized, her strength in which she had gloried, her independence, her splendid arrogant self-confidence and conscious power seemed all at once to weaken before this iron resolve that shut its ears and eyes, this colossal, untutored, savage intensity of purpose.