At this she held up her hand. "Wait," she said. "You will go to Osmonde, you will tell him this, you will--" "I will tell him all the story of the rose garden and of the sun-dial, and the beauty who had wit enough to scorn a man in public that she might more safely hold tryst with him alone. She had great wit and cunning for a beauty of sixteen. 'Twould be well for her lord to have keen eyes when she is twenty." He should have seen the warning in her eyes, for there was warning enough in their flaming depths. "All that you can say I know," she said--"all that you can say! And I love him. There is no other man on earth. Were he a beggar, I would tramp the highroad by his side and go hungered with him. He is my lord, and I his mate--his mate!" "That you will not be," he answered, made devilish by her words. "He is a high and noble gentleman, and wants no man's cast-off plaything for his wife." Her breast leaped up and down in her panting as she pressed her hand upon it; her breath came in sharp puffs through her nostrils. "And once," she breathed--"and once--I _loved_ thee--cur!" He was mad with exultant villainy and passion, and he broke into a laugh. "Loved me!" he said. "Thou! As thou lovedst me--and as thou lovest him--so will Moll Easy love any man--for a crown." Her whip lay upon the table, she caught and whirled it in the air. She was blind with the surging of her blood, and saw not how she caught or held it, or what she did--only that she struck! And 'twas his temple that the loaded weapon met, and 'twas wielded by a wrist whose sinews were of steel, and even as it struck he gasped, casting up his hands, and thereupon fell, and lay stretched at her feet! But the awful tempest which swept over her had her so under its dominion that she was like a branch whirled on the wings of the storm. She scarce noted that he fell, or noting it, gave it not one thought as she dashed from one end of the apartment to the other with the fierce striding of a mad woman. "Devil!" she cried, "and cur! and for thee I blasted all the years to come! To a beast so base I gave all that an empress' self could give--all life--all love--for ever. And he comes back--shameless--to barter like a cheating huckster, because his trade goes ill, and I--I could stock his counters once again." She strode towards him, raving. "Think you I do not know, woman's bully and poltroon, that you plot to sell yourself, because your day has come, and no woman will bid for such an outcast, saving one that you may threaten. Rise, vermin--rise, lest I kill thee!"