ling," was his
hard reply. "Probably I shall make you feel before the end of this
adventure."

"As if you hadn't done it already," she fairly bawled like a hurt child.
"For months I have not left the house without seeing everywhere the dogs
that tore Jezebel."

"You might also have seen that poor child whom you nearly drove to
death," he retorted, "and the mother whose heart you might have broken."

"Poor child!" she sneered, and burst out laughing while the tears still
lingered on her cheek. "He was a milksop, not a man. I thought he was a
man, or I never would have offered him pleasure. And you want me to make
a show of myself before...."

"Your old friends and well-wishers, McMeeter, Bradford and Co."

"Never, never, never," she screamed, and fell to weeping again. "I'll
die first."

"You won't be asked to die, madam. You'll go to jail the minute I leave
this house, and stand trial on fifty different charges. I'll keep you in
jail for the rest of your life. If by any trick you escape me, I'll
deliver you to the dogs."

"Can he do this?" she said scornfully to Curran, who nodded.

"And if I agree to it, what do I get?" turning again to Dillon.

"You can live in peace as La Belle Colette the dancer, practise your
profession, and enjoy the embraces of your devoted husband. I let you
off lightly. Your private life, your stage name, will be kept from the
public, and, by consequence, from the dogs."

She shivered at the phrase. Shame was not in her, but fear could grip
her heart vigorously. Her nerve did not exclude cowardice. This man she
had always feared, perceiving in him not only a strength beyond the
common, but a mysterious power not to be analyzed and named. Her flimsy
rage would break hopelessly on this rock. Still before surrendering, her
crooked nature forced her to the petty arts in which she excelled. Very
clearly in this acting appeared the various strokes of character
peculiar to Edith, Claire, and the Brand. She wheedled and whined one
moment in the husky tones of Sister Magdalen's late favorite; when
dignity was required she became the escaped nun; and in her rage she
would burst into the melodramatic frenzy dear to the McMeeter audiences;
but Colette, the heedless, irresponsible, half-mad butterfly, dominated
these various parts, and to this charming personality she returned.
Through his own sad experience this spectacle interested him. He subdued
her finally by a precise description of conseq