She answered him with all the authority she could command:
"Put down that knife! Put it down, I say! You know I could save myself from any danger by raising my voice. And you know I'd rather die than bring the servants in on such a scene."
"A scene!" he shrieked. "A scene! Why, woman, I'm going to kill you. Don't you understand anything? You've only got a minute more to live. Say your prayers! Damn you! say your prayers!"
There was an insanity in his look that frightened her at last. She tried persuasion now, and her voice was soft and caressing.
"Gently, Willie; gently now, I beg you. You're not yourself, you know. You must control yourself. Please!—as a favor to me."
It was the wrong word. It maddened him, and he snarled: "As a favor to you? You dare ask favors of me? Go ask 'em of the man you've given favors to! The man? The men!"
And this was sacrilege to her one love. Her lip curled in angry contempt, and she turned from him in loathing, muttering:
"You dirty little beast!"
It was his muscles rather than his mind that did it. While his mind was recoiling from the insult his arm had struck out, and the knife had slid deep in the snow of her half-averted left breast; through the petal of a rose, and the satin gown, and the deep white flesh beneath it, and on into the wall of her struggling heart.
The blow and her effort to escape flung her backward, but the heavy chair held her. Before she could remember a wild scream broke from her lips.