"Not until you have promised, Esther. Quickly make up your mind; there is not a moment to lose. Come, I can see it written in your face that you will not disappoint me."
"I refuse!—I refuse!—I refuse! Let me go, sir, you have done me wrong enough already! Do you call yourself a man, that you can treat a wretched woman so? Take your arm from round my waist before I strike you. Oh, you cur! you dastard! you coward! Isn't it enough for you that you should cut me off from a man whose shoes you are not worthy to unlace? Isn't it enough that you should drive me from my happy home? Isn't it enough that you should make me an unworthy mother to my child? Must you kill my soul as well as my heart? Let me go, I say, let me go! or, as I live, I'll strike you!"
"Hush, hush, Esther! for mercy's sake, be calm. Do you want to rouse the whole station?"
"I don't care what I do; I am desperate—I am mad with shame and loathing of you!"
"And you will go back to this lying traitor of a husband, I suppose, this great man, who won you by a lie, who has only deceived you as he has deceived others, a common fraud and trickster—you will go back to him, I suppose, and fawn on him, and tell him that you love him, when I have——"
With her right hand she struck him a blow upon the mouth.
"There, that is my answer to you; now go before I call for help and have you thrashed off the island!"
He sprang to his feet, his face black with rage. Ellison rose too, and approached the French window which led into the room. Merton's voice quivered with passion.
"You have struck me—good; you have fooled me—better! Now you shall understand me properly; I will have such vengeance for that blow, for that fooling, as never man had before. You little know my power, my lady; but I tell you this, that I will crush you to the earth, and that worm, your husband, with you, till you groan for mercy. In the meantime——"
He stopped and looked up to discover Ellison standing in the doorway.