"Then you'd better go," she said lifelessly, "because I can't see what else there is for me to do. Oh, I shan't go on with it for very long, of course—"
He came an eager half-step nearer. "Then, anyway, you'll let me go away and work, and when I've kind of got a start, you'll let me come back and—and see if—if you feel any sort of—different from what you do now? It wouldn't be so awful long. I'd work like—like Hell!" His thin hand shot into a fist.
Sheila's lassitude was startled by his word into a faint, unwilling smile.
"Don't laugh at me!" he cried out.
"Oh, Dickie, my dear, I'm not laughing. I'm so tired I can hardly stand. And truly you must go now. I'm horrid to you. I always am. And yet I do like you so much. And you are such a dear. And I feel there's something great about you. I should be glad for you to leave Millings. There is a much better chance for you away from Millings. I feel years old to-day. I think I've grown up too old all at once and missed lovely things that I ought to have had. Dickie"—she gave a dry sort of sob—"you are one of the lovely things."
His arms drew gently round her. "Let me kiss you, Sheila," he pleaded with tremulous lips. "I want just to kiss you once for good-bye. I'll be so careful. If you knowed how I feel, you'd let me."
She lifted up her mouth like an obedient child. Then, back of Dickie, she saw Sylvester's face.
It was more sallow than usual; its upper lip was drawn away from the teeth and deeply wrinkled; the eyes, half-closed, were very soft; they looked as though there was a veil across their pensiveness. He caught Dickie's elbow in his hand, twisted him about, thrusting a knee into his back, and with his other long, bony hand he struck him brutally across the face. The emerald on his finger caught the light of the rising sun and flashed like a little stream of green fire.
Dickie, caught unawares by superior strength, was utterly defenseless. He writhed and struggled vainly, gasping under the blows. Sylvester forced him across the room, still inflicting punishment. His hand made a great cracking sound at every slap.
Sheila hid her face from the dreadful sight. "Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she wailed again and again.