"I intend to know." His voice was as cold as ice. "Come, Eva, if pity for the girl doesn't move you, think of the man. Why condemn him to this mental torture, when a word from you can set him free?"
Suddenly she paused before him; and to his dying day he would never forget the hatred in her eyes.
"Did you think of that, when a word from you would have set me free? Did you utter the word which would have condemned you to prison but would have let me go back to the world of sunshine and freedom? Did any of the men who sent me to that hell think of my torture, my agony? Why should I think of anyone else now? What does it matter to me if Owen Rose and his wife die broken-hearted? Do you think I'd raise a finger to help them to find one another? No. No, I tell you, a hundred, thousand times—no."
Suddenly the man who listened was filled with a great and marvellous compassion. Even now, it seemed, his wife could not see the justice of her fate; but somehow her childish comparison of her own position with that of Owen and Toni Rose seemed pitiful, tragic, rather than evil.
"See here, dear." He spoke very gently. "You are overwrought. You don't know what you are saying. I'm sure in your heart you only want to act kindly, nobly, by those two unfortunate people. Tell me, where is Mrs. Rose, and when—and how—has she communicated with you?"
"She wrote to me—I got her letter to-night." There was a note of triumph in her voice which made him uneasy. "And do you know what I'm going to do with it? I'm going to burn it—now—before your eyes."
During her speech she had been edging nearer and nearer the table; and as she spoke the last words she made a frantic dart at the letter and envelope which had lain there through all the conversation. Quick as she was, however, she was almost too late.
Suddenly awake to her meaning, Herrick had swung round in time to see her seize the letter; and in an instant his hand was on her wrist.
"Eva! What are you going to do?"
"This." With a wild gesture she tore her hand from his; but again he was too quick for her.