ear her again, and the point of his long
forefinger rested on her arm. She was motionless, overwhelmed with pure
terror, with despair. He was smiling, but there was a desperate
something about him, stronger than the common desire of possession,
terrifying in its intensity. She looked behind her. The thick glass of
the window was there, a glimpse of the empty street and the figure of a
woman in a blowing green veil turning the corner.

"Why not give it to me now," he urged, "since, of course, you can't keep
it? I could have it now in spite of you."

Everything in her sprang up in antagonism to meet him. "I know what you
are," she cried, "but you shan't have it. You have no more right to it
than I. You can't get it away from me, and I shan't give it to you."

He had grown suddenly paler; his eyes were dancing, fastened upon her
breast. His long hands closed and opened. She looked down, arrested at
the sight of her hand clenched just where her breath was shortest, over
the sapphire's hiding-place.

He smiled. How easily she had betrayed herself! But she abated not a jot
of her defiance, challenging him, now he knew its hiding-place, to take
the sapphire if he could. But he did not move. And it came to her then
that she had been ridiculous to think for an instant that this man would
take anything from her by force. What she had to fear was his will at
work upon hers, his persuasion, his ingenuity. She thought of the purple
irises, and how he had drawn them toward him in the crook of his
cane--and her dread was lest he meant to overcome her with some subtlety
she could not combat. For that he was secret, that he was daring, that
he was fearless beyond belief, he showed her all too plainly, since here
he stood, condemned by his own evidence, alone, in the midst of her
household, within call of her servants, and had the sublime effrontery
to look at her with admiration, and, it occurred to her, even with a
little pity.

The click of a moving latch brought his eyes from hers to the door.

"Some one is coming in," he said in a guarded voice. It warned her that
her face showed too much, but she could not hope to recover her
composure. She hardly wanted to. She was in a state to fancy that a
secret could be kept by main force; and she turned without abatement of
her reckless mood and took her hand from where she had held it clenched
upon her breast and stretched it out to Mrs. Herrick.

The lady had stood in the doorway a m