But her hopes fell completely, still further below the zero at which they had stood. First, as she watched, she saw that ominous drawing together of the man's heavy brows, then, the naturally cold gray of his eyes seemed to change. Their stony gleam shone like the pinnacles of an iceberg in the light of a winter sun. Then they lit with a sudden violent emotion, and it seemed to her that the strength she was relying upon was about to fail her.
He looked up from the paper which fluttered to the floor from fingers which no longer seemed to obey the controlling will. He looked at Angus for a moment in a sort of dazed inquiry. Then his gaze sought the girl, and the storm burst.
"God in heaven!" he cried.
It was the exclamation of a mind which scarcely grasps the reality of the position, and yet has received the full shock.
"Why was I not told?" he demanded fiercely. "Why, in God's name, was it left till now? You Angus! You girl!" He turned furiously from one to the other. "Do you know what you've done? Do you?" He laughed wildly. "Of course you do? You've timed it. Timed it, do you hear? So it's impossible to get poor Mon the help she needs. Oh, as if I can't see. Am I blind? Am I an imbecile? You, you rotten Scot, you've always hated her. I saw it from the first. And now maybe you're satisfied. As for you, girl"—he turned upon Phyllis with upraised arms, as though about to strike her to the ground—"you're as bad. You wanted your revenge for what your man has been made to suffer. That's it. Oh, God, that I should have been so blind! Was there ever such a devilish vengeance? You, with your mild ways and simple air, you've stolen into my house that you might break my heart to square with me for your man's sufferings. And between you my Monica, my poor Mon, is lying in extremity, waiting for the help you would deny her. You thought to hurt me, and by God! you have succeeded," he cried, his voice rising to greater violence. "Oh, yes, you've succeeded, between you. You've done more. You've—you've killed her!"
He brought one great fist crashing down upon the desk. Then he rushed on—
"That fool doctor talks of hope. How can there be hope? I tell you there's none—not a shadow. There's not a train to go through. North, South, East and West, we are cut off as if those cursed plains were an ocean. Hope?" he laughed harshly. "There's as much hope as there is in hell. That woman'll be left to die. Do you hear me? Die! And between you, some of you, you've killed her!"
His frenzy was the frenzy of a madman. It was a frenzy such as, once before in his life, he had displayed. All this man's strength was swept aside by the passionate torrent of his dreadful feelings. All power of reason was lost to him. No hysterical child could have been weaker in its mental balance than this great savage man was at that moment.
Phyllis understood something of this. Angus simply eyed him watchfully. His was not the discerning eye of the girl. His attitude was the outcome of a nature which understood violence only at its face value, therefore he was physically and mentally alert. But the girl, a mere child, saw deeper. And her observation roused her own latent courage and mentality to activity.
She saw that she must fling herself into the arena that he might be brought up to the only fighting pitch that could serve them all, that could serve Monica. She seized upon his final charge to attack him almost as fiercely as he had attacked them.