"Be still till I've finished, because if you talk you may make me forget—"
The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that Mary shrank away and put the embers of the fire between them.
"I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never loved anything but you, you milk-faced, yellow-livered—"
She stopped again, fighting against her passion.
The pride of Mary held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook.
"Has he sent you after me with mockery?"
"No, he's given up the hope of you."
"The hope?"
"Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have felt different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid brother—"
"And lived with you?" said the other sternly.