"

She spoke with supreme scorn, every word a challenge. She was more
angry in that moment than she could remember that she had ever been
before. How dared he hear Schafen's evidence against her, and then
coolly take her thus to task?

The memory of his kiss swept back upon her as she spoke, that kiss
that had so cruelly wounded her, that kiss that had finally rent
the veil away from her quivering heart. She stood before him with
clenched hands. If he had attempted to kiss her then, she would
have struck him.

But he did not move. He stood, looking at her, looking at her,
till at last her wide eyes wavered and sank before his own. He
spoke then, an odd inflection in his voice.

"Why are you so angry?"

Her two fists were pressed hard against her sides. She was aware
of a weakening of her self-control, and she fought with all her
strength to retain it. She could not speak for a second or two,
but it was not fear that restrained her.

"Tell me!" he said. "Why are you angry?"

The colour was dying slowly out of her face; a curious chill had
followed the sudden flame. "It is your own fault," she said.

"How--my fault?" Burke's voice was wholly free from any sort of
emotion; but his question held insistence notwithstanding.

She answered it almost in spite of herself. "For making me hate
you."

He made a slight movement as of one who shifts his hold upon some
chafing creature to strengthen his grip. "How have I done that?"
he said.

She answered him in a quick, breathless rush of words that betrayed
her failing strength completely. "By doubting me--by being jealous
and showing it--by--by--by insulting me!"

"What?" he said.

She turned from him sharply and walked away, battling with herself.
"You know what I mean," she said tremulously. "You know quite well
what I mean. You were angry yesterday--angry because Hans
Schafen--a servant--had told you something that made you distrust
me. And because you were angry, you--you--you insulted me!" She
turned round upon him suddenly with eyes of burning accusation.
She was fighting, fighting, with all her might, to hide from him
that frightened, quivering thing that she herself had recognized
but yesterday. If it had been a plague-spot, she could not have
guarded it more jealously. Its presence scared her. Her every
instinct was to screen it somehow, somehow, from those keen eyes.
For he was so horribly strong, so shrewd, so merciless!

He came