'I don't care whether he be dead or not, you think that he is your double. I tell you, as I have told you before, he is not. I am.'
'I will not listen to more of this,' she said in a hard tone. 'Let me pass, let me go to my room.'
'I will not let you pass,' he swore; the breath came through his nostrils like the snorting of a frightened horse; 'I will not. Hear me, Glory, my own Glory! hear me you shall.' He grasped her arms between the elbow and shoulder with his iron hands, and shook her savagely.
'Listen to me, Glory, you must and shall. You do not love me, Glory, because you do not fear me. The dog whom I beat till it howls with torture creeps up to me and licks my hand. A woman will never love her equal, but she will worship her superior. You have shown me to-day that you think yourself on a level with me. You have donned again your cap of liberty,' he raised one hand to her head, plucked off the cap and cast it on the floor, 'thinking that now you have taken me before the world, you have broken my power over you. You do not know me, Glory! you do not know me. Listen to me!' Through the twilight she could see his fierce eyes flaring at her, her hair was disturbed by the hot blasts of his labouring lungs. His fingers that held her twitched convulsively as he spoke.
'Listen to me, Glory! and know me and respect me. I am no more to be escaped from than fate. I am mighty over you as a Providence. You may writhe and circumvent, but I meet you at every turn, and tread you down whenever you think to elude me. Listen to me, Glory!' He paused, and drew a long breath; 'Listen, I say, to me. Glory! how did you lose your money that night that Abraham Dowsing sold your sheep? I feel you stirring and starting in my hands. Yes, I took it. You went out with George De Witt, and left the purse on the table. When your mother left the room, I took the money. You may have it back now when you like, now that I have you. I took it—you see why. To have you in my power.'
'Coward and thief!' gasped Mehalah.
'Ah! call me names if you like; you do not know me yet, and how impossible it is to resist me. You thought when you had got the money again, from George, that you had escaped me.'
'Stay!' exclaimed Mehalah. 'It was you,' with compressed scorn, 'that fired on George and me in the marsh.'
'I fired at him, not at you; and had you not changed the place of the lanthorn in the boat, I should have shot him.'
The girl shuddered in his hands.