For the man had been frightened at Frank’s expression when he took the whip from him. All the party rose and made a movement.
“Oh, Katie!” Alice burst out.
“Stop!” Kate said, very pale, “stop, all of you, I will go down alone. I know Frank. None of you could turn him, not a hair’s breadth, now. I do not know whether I can. I will try.”
“No, wife,” Frank answered her appeal, “he has been punished for cheating his uncle, he has been punished for Carry, but he has not been punished for you, I—I, your husband, Kate—take that in my own hands.”
Frank had not looked at his wife while he spoke; his eyes, wide with a savage glare, looked down upon his victim, and his powerful arm was slowly but steadily raised. Kate clung to him.
“Frank, oh, Frank, I forgive him!”
“Yes, Katie, you forgive him for yourself, but I don’t forgive him for my wife. Stand aside, Katie!”
There was something so menacing, so deadly, in the cold calmness of his tone, that Kate shuddered, while Fred Bingham, although he had despairingly nerved himself for the ordeal, yet felt the blood tingling in every vein.
“Oh, Frank, if you love me, if you care for me, let him go.”
“Katie, for the last time, stand aside.”