Leland moved and laid his hand upon her shoulder again.
"Only to remember that, however little you think of your husband, you are my wife, after all."
The girl's cheeks burned, but she looked up at him with a little hard laugh. "I think I could have struck you for that, but it must go with the rest. Still, even if I were all that your imagination could picture me, and went as far as Mrs. Heaton did, why should it trouble you?"
Leland stooped lower over her with the veins swollen on his forehead and a glint in his eyes.
"You and your father tricked me—taking all I had to offer for nothing," he said. "I suppose I ought to hate you, too—and still I can't."
Once more he gripped her cruelly. "By the Lord, dolt that I am, I think I almost love you for the grit that made you show your scorn. Still, that doesn't count. It is for me to go it alone."
He let his grasp relax and left her suddenly, turning at the door.
"You will want a companion. Will you write for Mrs. Annersly to-morrow?"
"I will," said Carrie coldly. "Under the circumstances it is advisable. She will be a protection."
He went out and she saw no more of him for a day or two, but that night she found a blue mark upon the whiteness of her shoulder.