Then with eyes of hate she cried again,
"Who is Rachel?"
But the only voice that answered her was the voice that rang within him—"I'm a lost man, God help me."
"Who is Rachel?" the woman cried once more, and the sound of that name from her lips, hardening it, brutalizing it, befouling it, was the most awful thing by which his soul had yet been shaken out of its stupor.
"Who is she, I say? Answer me," she cried in a raging voice; but he crouched there still, with his haggard face and misty eyes turned down.
Then she laid her hand on his shoulder and shook him, and cried bitterly.
"Who is she, this light o' love—this baggage?"
At that he stiffened himself up, shuddered from head to foot, flung her from him and answered in a terrible voice.
"Woman, she is my wife."
That word, like a thunderbolt, left a heavy silence behind it. Liza stood looking in terror at Stephen's face, unable to utter a cry.