Muriel's fists were clenched at her sides. Her eyes shone and her cheeks were crimson. Tight as her stays were, her white breast above the low-cut black corsage rose and fell like white-capped waves seen in a lightning-flash on a darkened sea.
"I shan't stay in this room and listen any longer to such things," she declared.
He raised a steady hand.
"Only a moment more, please," he said.
Her reply was merely to stand there before him. He continued:
"So, as I say, I gave you that fair chance. You weren't equal to it. I took you away from Paris again—the next day, wasn't it?—because you wanted to go, but I knew that your wanting to go away from von Klausen was a purely temporary mood of repentance. I had been patient, for I am by nature a patient man; but I grew tired of waiting. When this Austrian turned up here in Marseilles, as I was sure he would soon turn up, I decided to make an end of it. Now"—he spoke as if he were concluding an affair of business—"I have made that end."
"How have you made that end?"
Stainton smiled wanly.
"My dear——" he said.
"Don't call me that."