A chill ran through Mehetabel's veins. She said, "There is some truth in it, Iver. You hold a dead girl by the hand. To you, I am, I must be, forever—dead."
"Nonsense. All will come right somehow."
"Yes, Iver," she said; "it will so. You are free and will go about, and will see and love and marry a girl worthy of you in every way. As for me, my lot is cast in the Punch-Bowl. No power on earth can separate me from Bideabout. I have made my bed and must lie on it, though it be one of thorns. There is but one thing for us both—we must part and meet no more."
"Matabel," he put forth his hand in protest.
"I have spoken plainly," she said, "because there is no good in not doing so. Do not make my part more difficult. Be a man—go."
"Matabel! It shall not be, it cannot be! My love! My only one."
He tried to grasp her.
She sprang from the settle. A mist formed before her eyes. She groped for something by which to stay herself.
He seized her by the waist. She wrenched herself free.
"Let me go!" she cried. "Let me go!"