"I have deserved it," he said, humbly.
"The cruel work is done—yes, done past undoing. You have not heard the last of it. Then, since you ask me what I have to say to you, it is this: That man, that instrument of your malice who is now your master, has been to say that he can compel me to live with him, or imprison me if I refuse. Can he do it?"
Hugh Ritson lifted his eyes with a blind, vacant stare.
"To live with him? Him? You to live with him?" he said, absently.
"To live under his roof—those were his words. Can he do it? I mean if the law recognizes him as my husband?"
Hugh Ritson's eyes wandered.
"Do it? Your husband?" he echoed, incoherently.
"I know well what he wants," said Greta, breathing heavily; "it is not myself he is anxious for—but he can not have the one without the other."
"The one without the other?" echoed Hugh Ritson in a low tone. Then he strode across the room in visible agitation.
"Greta, that man is—. Do you know who he is?"