And she had heeded and, forsaking all else, had trusted him.
According to his lights Thornton had sincerely meant those words when he spoke them. He was under the spell, still, as he looked at the small frozen thing before him now.
If he could win her from her absurd, and almost unbelievable, position; if he could, through her love and his, gain her absolutely; make her his—what a conquest!
"My precious one, I am yours to do with what you will!" he was saying with all the fervour of his being; but Meredith looked at him from a great distance.
"You were never mine!" was what she said. Then asked:
"Is that—that woman here? Will I ever—meet her?"
Thornton was growing furiously angry.
"Certainly not!" he replied to her last question, incensed at the implied lack of delicacy on his part. Then he added, "Don't be a fool, Merry!"
"No, I won't," she whispered, grimly. "I won't be a fool, whatever else I am. Do you want me to leave you at once, or stay on?"
Thornton stared at her blankly.