She put out her hands in an instinctive, shuddering movement of repulsion. Still he clung to her, muttering his insupportable phrases. He clung and she could not release herself without doing what she had thought was impossible—exert her unused hands in striking, thrusting, beating off. She hesitated: she did not like to touch him. He looked very small and low in his chair. How low he seemed from her dizzy height! And yet he held so well. His voice came faintly, too, as if from afar, floating up faint and hateful. So he would hold Ewing and slay him with his voice. He was playing with the dagger again and proffering his heart with maudlin eyes. Prisoning her still with his right arm, he took her hand in his left and clumsily set it on the dagger's hilt.
"It would be a sweet death, Nell. Press home!" He drew her closer, so that she staggered on his shoulder. "Gad! your eyes are fine. What a woman you are! Too great, Nell, for that beaten whelp, even before he took to your sister——"
She gave a desperate little cry and struck out to free herself. It was hardly more than a gesture to have him away, but she was conscious, with a lightning shock, that the blade moved under her hand. She heard Teevan's shrill scream of fright and pain——
"You're killing me—you're killing me!"
But she saw only Ewing with covered face, and pushed the harder, lost to all but her blind sense of opposition. Then she heard a new note in Teevan's cry.
"Ewing! Ewing!"
She turned quickly, while Teevan retreated round a corner of the desk, snarling his rage—turned to see Ewing.
CHAPTER XXV
MRS. LAITHE IS ENLIGHTENED
HE stood just inside the door, hat in hand, regarding the scene with a look that was troubled yet cool. She felt her way cautiously back to a chair, afraid of fainting, and grasped it for support. Finding that her hand still clutched the dagger, she dropped it with a shudder of disgust.