"Some silly nonsense. Because she tried to scratch your eyes out, I daresay--serve you right if she did."
"Because she wouldn't marry me."
"Because----!" She stopped to burst into noisy, strident laughter. "She must have been a fool. I should have thought any one would have married you if you'd made it worth their while."
"I told you that she was not the kind of woman you have ever met; she's clean beyond your understanding. Put your hand underneath my pillow--gently. You'll find a case; take it out."
Isabel looked at him, hesitating, as if in doubt of his meaning, then she did as he had told her. He was propped up on a nicely graduated series of pillows. As she withdrew her hand, the case between her fingers, she dragged one of the pillows with it right from under the one on which his head reposed, so that, denuded of its support, his head fell back. In a second he began to choke before her eyes. His face grew bluer and bluer; the veins stood out through his skin; he fought for breath; his stertorous gasps shook him from head to foot. She raised his head to its normal position, returning the pillow to its place. As she watched him struggle back to what--to him--was life, she laughed.
"It wouldn't take long to make an end of you."
By degrees he regained the use of his attenuated voice.
"I do want careful handling--that's so. Still I wouldn't murder me if I were you--it would be murder. Murder has to be paid for in full. It would be hardly worth your while to be compelled to render full payment for such a remnant as I am. Have you got the case? Open it."
She held a square Russia leather case, in corn-flower blue. She looked for a spring or for something which would enable her to get at its interior, but found nothing.
"Does it open? I don't see how."