"Stop!" I cried. "I will not listen to blasphemy."
"You will listen awhile to me," and he stood against the door, barring possible egress. "You have had a large share in the filthy campaign of lies and intrigues which has at last succeeded in turning me out of this house. I shall at least make sure that you are bundled out yourself. Before I go, this very day, I am going to supply this amiable and grateful family with a brief account of yourself and who you really are,—your dirty little shopkeeper relations in England, your common sailor of a grandfather, your vulgar canting old grandmother, your boozing aunt. Then a few words about your dear father, and your frankness with Madame la Comtesse on the subject of his recent visit: how odd that he did not live with your mother, how odd the little hints Monsieur Greeber was so good as to give me as to whether he was your dear father at all, how odd the charm of bastardy—"
"Monsieur," I broke in, "if ever I have a husband, he shall exact full payment for this. Go on insulting me, however. It will achieve nothing, it leaves me cold."
"A husband, ah yes—dear 'R'! How tender your many references to him. Strange though it should seem, this world is small, and suppose so seemingly irrelevant an event as my forced departure from this house in France should have some effect on dear 'R' in England? There is my dear friend Monsieur Greeber. Don't alarm yourself, there's a brave girl—"
"Get out!" I cried.
"When I have done. There are still other results of your handiwork to consider. The family's name, for instance? It will benefit, you think, from my departure? Monsieur le Comte—his honourable doings. Mademoiselle Elise—her passion for her sister—so pure, so natural, so sisterly—"
"Ten seconds, and if you're not gone, I shall shriek for help." I rose, pale with anger.
He came forward, seized me, glued his mouth to mine.
It was no stage-play now. In a strange flooding moment Mary the lover of Robbie reconquered the fortress of my soul. Thirty years later I can summon the odd physical-spiritual sensation as the selves did battle within me. Mine eyes beheld love, and this nightmare moment was its negation.
I only record the moment, shutting the spirit's memory as I write; think of it I will not, cannot. I struggled, for a second or two, without avail, wild with a nameless sickening fear; prayed in shame and desperation "Lord, deliver me: Robbie, forgive!" Then with a desperate movement I freed my face from the foul impact, and gave as heartrending a shriek as was ever achieved by virgin in distress.