At last she spoke.
“Clive, you will not hear me,” she pleaded now, as her womanly indignation was swept away by the great horror she saw looming up before her.
“No,” he said, “I will not hear you. I know enough. Are you trembling for your lover’s life?”
“Oh!” she ejaculated, and she made an effort to snatch away her wrist; but the ring around it grew tighter as they walked on now in silence, till in her dread, as the icy perspiration gathered upon her forehead, she stopped short and faced him.
“I would not speak,” she said, in a low hurried voice. “You should go on thinking me everything that was false and bad. I would not say a word to show how you are misjudging me.”
He laughed scornfully.
“But I will not have you go in your mad anger and ignorance to commit some act for which you would repent to your dying day.”
“Only a short time of suffering, perhaps,” he said mockingly.
“Oh, Clive! you of all men to misjudge me so,” she moaned. “Let me tell you all.”
“Hah!” he ejaculated, as he fiercely swung her round and continued his walk, half dragging her beside him as if she were a prisoner.