He stepped away quickly towards the door, and Frank Morrison sprang up and made as if once more to seize him, but with a violent thrust Malpas sent him backwards and was gone.
Frank Morrison stood motionless till he heard the front door close; then with a moan of anguish he turned towards where Renée still lay insensible upon the couch.
“My punishment!” he groaned: “and I believed in her so thoroughly; I thought her so pure, so sweet that—out upon me! I left her, dog that I was, for garbage. Curse him!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage, “curse her, with her smooth, white, innocent looks! The whole world is blasted with villainy, and there is not one among us worthy of a moment’s faith.”
“Frank—husband,” moaned a voice, and Renée, pale as death, rose trembling to clasp her hands before him.
He caught them in his, dragged her up savagely, and then swung her down upon her knees.
“And you, too, of all women in the world! Curse you! curse you! may you—”
“Frank, my own, I—”
“Out upon you!” he cried. “I’ll never look upon your smooth false face again!”
Choking with her emotion, she tried to speak—to cling to him; but he snatched himself away, and as she fell heavily upon the carpet he rushed from the house.