“Close the door,” she said huskily. Then she emerged slowly, almost like a spectre, from the dark background formed by the huge mahogany bookcases that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. “You were a long time up there,” she went on. “Why is it so dark in here, Yvonne?” he asked lifelessly. “So that it would not be possible for me to see the shame in your eyes, James.” He leaned heavily against the long table. She came up and stood across the table from him, and he felt that her eyes were searching his very soul. “I have hurt him beyond all chance of recovery,” he said hoarsely. She started violently. “You--you struck him down? He--he is dying?” Her voice trailed off into a whisper. “He will be a long time in dying. It will be slow. I struck him down, not with my hand, not with a weapon that he could parry, but with words--words! Do you hear? I have crushed his soul with words!” “Oh, you coward!” she cried, leaning over the table, her eyes blazing. “I can understand it in you. You have no soul of your own. What have you done to your son, James Brood?” He drew back as if from the impact of a blow. “Coward? If I have crushed his soul, it was done in time, Yvonne, to deprive you of the glory of doing it.” “What did he say to you about me?” “You have had your fears for nothing. He did not put you in jeopardy,” he said scornfully. “I know. He is not a coward,” she said calmly. “In your heart you are reviling me. You judge me as one guilty soul judges another. Suppose that I were to confess to you that I left him up there with all the hope, all the life blasted out of his eyes--with a wound in his heart that will never stop bleeding--that I left him because I was sorry for what I had done and could not stand by and look upon the wreck I had created. Suppose------” “I am still thinking of you as a coward. What is it to me that you are sorry now? What have you done to that wretched, unhappy boy?” “He will tell you soon enough. Then you will despise me even more than I despise myself. He--he looked at me with his mother's eyes when I kept on striking blows at his very soul. Her eyes--eyes that were always pleading with me! But, curse them--always scoffing at me! For a moment I faltered. There was a wave of love--yes, love, not pity, for him--as I saw him go down before the words I hurled at him. It was as if I had hurt the only thing in all the world that I love. Then it passed. He was not meant for me to love. He was born for me to despise. He was born to torture me as I have tortured him.” “You poor fool!” she cried, her eyes glittering. “Sometimes I have doubted my own reason,” he went on, as if he had not heard her scathing remark. “Sometimes I have felt a queer gripping of the heart when I was harshest toward him. Sometimes, his eyes--_her eyes_--have melted the steel that was driven into my heart long ago, his voice and the touch of his hand have gently checked my bitterest thoughts. Are you listening?” “Yes.”