There was certainly something in Eleanor Wheelock's eyes just then that few people would have cared to face. The vindictive hatred she bore Merril had for the time being driven every womanly attribute out of her, but she remembered how she had loathed this man's advances and endured them. To carry out her purpose she would, indeed, have stooped to anything, for her hatred had possessed her wholly and altogether. Now it was momentarily turned on her companion.
"It would have been wiser if you had made that clear first," she said, with a slow incisiveness that made the words cut like the lash of a whip. "Still, I suppose, the offer is generous, in view of the trouble you would very probably bring on yourself by attempting to carry it out."
The man appeared staggered for a moment, but he recovered himself.
"Well," he said, with a little forceful gesture, "there are parts of my record I can't boast about, but there are points on which you'd go 'way beyond me. That, I guess, is what got hold of me and won't let me go. By the Lord, Eleanor, nothing would be impossible to you and me if we pulled together."
"That will never happen," said the girl, still with a very significant quietness. "Don't force me to speak too plainly."
Carnforth appeared bewildered, for at last he was compelled to recognize that she meant what she said, but there was anger in his eyes.
"Well," he said stupidly, "what in the name of wonder did you want? You know you led me on."
"Perhaps I did. Now that I know what you are, I tell you to go. Had you been any other man I might have felt some slight compunction, or, at least, a little kindliness toward you. As it is, I am only longing to shake off the contamination you have brought upon me."
She broke off with a little gesture of relief, and moving toward the window flung the shutters back.
"They have finished chopping, and I hear the ox-team in the bush," she said. "Forster will be here in a minute or two."