'Do not recall that,' she said, with a bitter smile. 'Women of my race have killed men before now for less outrage than yours has been to me.'
'Kill me!' he cried to her. 'I will kiss your hand.'
She was mute.
He clung to her gown with an almost convulsive supplication.
'Believe, at least, that I loved you!' he cried, beside himself in his misery and impotence. 'Believe that, at the least!—--'
She turned from him.
'Sir, I have been your dupe for ten long years; I can be so no more!'
Under that intolerable insult he rose slowly, and his eyes grew blind, and his limbs trembled, but he walked from her, and sought not again either her pity or her pardon.
On the threshold he looked back once. She stood erect, one hand resting upon the carved work of her high oak chair; cold, stalely, motionless, the furred velvets falling to her feet like a queen's robes.
He looked, then passed the threshold and closed the door behind him. He walked down the corridors blindly, not knowing whither he went.