"
"And bring her back?"
"Back here? No, certainly not."
"You will hurt her, bully her, terrify her!" The words were quick with
agitation.
He ignored them. "Tell me where she is."
She made a last effort.
"If I tell you--will you take me with you?"
"No," he said, "I will not."
"Then--then--" She was looking straight into those pitiless eyes. It
seemed she could not help herself. "I will tell you," she said at last.
"But you will be kind to her? You will remember how young she is, and
that--that you drove her to it?"
Her voice was piteous, her resistance was dead.
"I shall remember," he said very quietly, "one thing only."
"Yes?" she murmured. "Yes?"
"That she is my wife," he said, in the same level tone. "Now--answer me."
And because there was no longer any alternative course, she yielded.
Had he shown himself a raging demon she could have resisted him, and
rejoiced in it. But this man, with his rigid self-control, his unswerving
resolution, his deadly directness, dominated her irresistibly.
Without argument he had changed her point of view. Without argument or
protestation of any sort, he had convinced her that it was no passing
fancy of his that had prompted him to choose Nan for his wife. She had
vaguely suspected it before. Now she knew.
CHAPTER IX
It was very dark over the moors. The solitary lights of a cab crawling
almost at a foot pace along the lonely road shone like a will-o'-the-wisp
through the snow.
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