"Go!" she gasped. "Go with her! By so doing I will not have to explain; I will be free to return—to Doris."
"So!" And now Thornton got up and paced the floor; "having foresworn every duty you owe me, having driven me to what you choose to call wrong, you pack your nice, clean little soul in your bag and go back to pose as—as—what in God's name will you pose as? You!"
Meredith shrank back. She was conscious now of her danger.
"Well, then!" Thornton came close and laughed down upon the shrinking form—her terror further roused the brute in him; all that was decent and fine in him—and both were there—fell into darkness; "you'll pay, by heaven! before you go. You'll—"
"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"
And again Thornton laughed.
"Dare? You—you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow—by God!"
But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other took her place she did not seek to know.
The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to think and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before. And then—she knew the worst!