She faltered and came back. Even those few steps away from him had taught her what a final separation would mean, and she resolved to risk all on a single throw. Without parley, with a suddenness that left Griff resourceless, she was in his arms.
"Griff, will you never understand? Take me, take me, for I can't live without you. Things are all changed, dear; I am free now, and—Griff, I love you so." Her voice broke, her helplessness was pitiably real.
Once, Sybil Ogilvie would have said that it was only country hoydens who indulged in these crude lapses of taste. Yet there were few farm-wenches in all the Marshcotes moorside who could have brought themselves to show so little restraint, so little of the pride of shame; this dainty, well-bred child of the world had outfaced them all.
Griff held her away from him, looking straight into her eyes, with a glance that was half of contempt, half of impatient pity.
"You never stopped to ask, Sybil, if we were both free."
In this supreme moment of his revenge, vengeance seemed a sorry thing. Men cannot but deaden themselves to the faults of a woman who is wise enough to love them; yet under all this Griff was chivalrously ashamed that any woman should so have humbled herself before him.
Mrs. Ogilvie looked at him with startled eyes.
"What do you mean? Not that—oh, Griff, not that you are bound—married?"
He nodded silently. He was marvelling that he, or any man, had been able to strike down to a bit of real feeling in this baby-temptress.