Besides, the possibility of intrusion was not
in their minds. Henley stood beside his desk, the same sneering smile
I had learned to hate, curling his lips, his eyes on her face in a gaze
that was insult. The girl, evidently retreating before him, alarmed by
some word he had uttered, or by his approach, had reached the door, and
grasped the knob. The expression on her face told me she had
discovered it locked, herself a prisoner, and that she had turned in
desperation. Her first, swift, unrestraining speech gave me full
understanding of her despair.
"You have trapped me here--you--you brute," she burst forth. "What you
said out yonder was all a lie to--to get me to come with you!"
"Well, what of it?" insinuatingly. "All is fair in love and war, I
have heard, and this is either the one or the other. Why should n't it
be me, my dear, as well as the other?"
"What do you mean? Do you connect me with Gordon Craig?"
"Of course," and he laughed. "Why shouldn't I, please? You came with
him from the North, did you not--traveling as his wife? Picked the
fellow up on the street, did n't you? My dear, this assumption of
outraged virtue is all thrown away on me--I happen to know your
history."
She took a deep breath, standing straight before him, her cheeks
burning.
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