hat I want to ask you is have you ever
thought of me?"

"Thought of you, Klara?" he said quietly, even as he felt, more than
saw, that Elsa too had drawn back a little--a step or two further away
from Klara, but a step or two also further away from him. "Thought of
you?" he reiterated, seeing that Klara did not reply immediately, and
that just for one brief moment--it was a mere flash--a look of
irresolution had crept into her eyes, "why should I be thinking about
you?"

"Why, indeed?" she said with a wrathful sneer. "What hurt had I done to
you, Andor, that is what I want to know. I was always friendly to you. I
had never done you any wrong--nor did I do Elsa any wrong--any wrong, I
mean, that mattered," she continued, talking more loudly and more
volubly because Andor was making desperate efforts to stop and interrupt
her. "Bela would only have run after another woman if I had turned my
back on him. And then when you asked me to leave him alone, I promised,
didn't I? What you asked me to do I promised. . . . And I meant to keep
my promise to you, and you knew it . . . and yet you rounded on me like
that. . . ."

"Silence, Klara," he cried at the top of his voice as he shook the girl
roughly by the shoulder.

But she paid no heed to him--she was determined to be heard, determined
to have her say. All the bitterness in her had been bottled up for
weeks. She meant to meet Andor face to face before she was packed off as
the submissive wife of a hated husband--the naughty child, whipped and
sent out of the way--she meant to throw all the pent-up bitterness
within her, straight into his face--and meant to do it when Elsa was
nigh. For days and days she had watched for an opportunity; but her
father had kept her a prisoner in the house, besides which she had no
great desire to affront the sneering looks of village gossips. But this
evening was her opportunity. For this she had waited, and now she meant
to take it, and no power on earth, force or violence would prevent her
from pouring out the full phial of her venomous wrath.

"I will not be silent," she shrieked, "I will not! You did round on me
like a cur--you sneak--you double-faced devil. . . ."

"Will you be silent!" he hissed through his teeth, his face deadly pale
now with a passion of wrath at least as fierce as hers.

But now Elsa's quiet voice interposed between these two tempestuous
souls.

"No!" she said firmly, "Klara shall not be silent, Andor. Let go