Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to say, not unkindly:
"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut—shut and lock the door!"
"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart—she's mine and——"
"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding. Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and bravado, then she must use them.
"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave—Molly to me and——"
"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would sell the—the child to Teale and his kind?"
"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her—they——"
"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman!
Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning, crouched in the far corner.
"Come," he whispered; "come!"