He was blind with passion now, and she saw it. Without another word she pushed his arm aside, and letting down the window, called upon the driver to stop. "Very well," he said, when he saw what she had done. "I have finished with you from this moment. Remember, whatever happens is your doing." "Will you help Dicky inside, please, and tell the driver to go on?" Her intense placidity infuriated him only the more. He seized her wrist roughly and twisted it, glaring at her. Then he banged the door and strode away. Without word or sound--though he had hurt her wrist badly--she jumped out of the cab and got Dicky down from his perch. She bade the driver go on to the hotel. Then she leaned back in her seat and smiled, well pleased with herself. Placed as she was she couldn't have done better, she thought. He was as much in love with her as ever, that was quite certain. He would not be content to leave her like that. She had thrilled at his savage clutch of her, painful though it was. It meant that he was hers, body and soul. He would come at her bidding--he would be her slave. But not now was he for her or she for him. There might come a time, perhaps---- But that was another story. Now, she was face to face, she knew, with the crucial point of her life. On her immediate action depended everything. The will was in her possession to do with it what she would. What should she do with it? Destroy it--destroy it--destroy it--the words seemed to buzz continually in her brain. She was so completely engrossed that she did not notice that they had arrived at the hotel. The porter came to the door. Taking Dicky by the hand, she went straight upstairs to their private sitting-room. Her husband was there reading the paper. She was surprised to see him. "Dear me," she said, "you here, John? I thought you surely would be at the club. You don't mind if I leave the boy with you till Kimber can take him? I have such a splitting headache that I must go straight and lie down." "Sorry, Hilda--leave him by all means." She certainly looked tired he thought. In her own room, having dismissed her maid, she threw herself on the bed, and fell to thinking again. Five minutes after she rang the bell. "Kimber," she said, as the maid appeared, "I am shivering--just put a match to the fire. That will do, thank you; you needn't wait." As the fire burned up she rose from the bed, and settled herself on the rug by the hearth. Then she took the will from the pocket of her dress and spread it out before her. She read it from beginning to end. And so she learned how Miriam, if she had done this thing, had sacrificed herself in the doing of it. Could _she_ have sacrificed herself like that? No--emphatically no. Could Miriam? She was obliged to confess to herself that she thought she could--and had. But the confession galled her ever so, and she hated her the more for it. And then for a moment she gave way to her hate.