She resisted with furious energy.
She succeeded in disengaging herself, jumped back, panting and trembling.
"Are you mad?" she cried, choked by anger. "Are you mad?"
But when she saw him come after her without speaking a word, when she felt herself seized with more brutal violence and dragged again toward the precipice, she understood all, and a great, sinister flash of light struck terror to her soul.
"No, George, no! Let me be! Let me be! Only one minute! Listen! Listen! One minute! I want to tell you——"
Insane with terror, she supplicated him, writhing. She hoped to stop him, to move him to pity.
"One minute! Listen! I love you! Forgive me! Forgive me!"
She stammered incoherent words desperately, feeling herself becoming weaker, losing her ground, seeing death before her.
"Assassin!" she then shrieked, furious.
And she defended herself with her nails, with her teeth, like a beast.