"For a sign that I'd sink again to your level! Well, I found out twenty years ago that beneath the skin of every man sleeps an ape and a tiger—I fought that battle and won——"
"And I have lost?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps I haven't begun to fight yet."
"I shouldn't advise you to try it. I know now that I made a tragic blunder when I brought you back into this house. I've cursed myself a thousand times that I didn't put the ocean between us. If my boy hadn't loved you, if he hadn't slipped his little arms around your neck and clung to you sobbing out the loneliness of his hungry heart—if I hadn't seen the tears in your own eyes and known that you had saved his life once—I wouldn't have made the mistake that I did. But I gave you my word, and I've lived up to it. I've reared and educated your child and given you the protection of my home——"
"Yes," she broke in, "that you might watch and guard me and know that your secret was safely kept while you've grown to hate me each day with deeper and fiercer hatred—God!—I've wondered sometimes that you haven't killed me!"
Norton's voice sank to a whisper:
"I've wondered sometimes, too"—a look of anguish swept his face—"but I gave you my word, and I've kept it."
"Because you had to keep it!"
He sprang to his feet: