“And let me tell you something more. Although I can never marry Lydia, by Heaven, I shall love her to the end of my life. I will not betray that love. To the end of time she shall know that my love for her is real and true and------” “Frederic, you must listen to me,” she cried, wringing her hands. “You must hear what I have to say to you. Wait! Do not leave me!” “What is it, Yvonne--what is it?” he cried, pausing in utter amazement after taking a few steps toward the door. “Where are you going?” she whispered, following him with dragging steps. “Not to _him?_” “Certainly not! Do you think I would betray you to him?” “Wait! Give me time to think,” she pleaded. He shook his head resolutely. “Do not judge me too harshly. Hear what I have to say before you condemn me. I am not the vile creature you think, Frederic. Wait! Let me think!” He stared at her for a moment in deep perplexity and then slowly drew near. “Yvonne, I do not believe you mean to do wrong--I do not believe it of you. You have been carried away by some horrible------” “Listen to me,” she broke in fiercely. “I would have sacrificed you--aye, sacrificed you, poor boy--in order to strike James Brood the cruellest blow that man ever sustained. I would have destroyed you in destroying him--God forgive me! But you have shown me how terrible I am, how utterly terrible! Love you? No! No! Not in that way. I would have put a curse, an undeserved curse, upon your innocent head, and all for the joy it would give me to see James Brood grovel in misery for the rest of his life. Oh!” She uttered a groan of despair and self-loathing so deep and full of pain that his heart was chilled. “Yvonne!” he gasped, dumbfounded. “Do not come near me!” she cried out, covering her face with her hands. For a full minute she stood before him, straight and rigid as a statue, a tragic figure he was never to forget. Suddenly she lowered her hands. To his surprise, a smile was on her lips. “You would never have gone away with me. I know it now. All these months I have been counting on you for this very hour, this culminating hour--and now I realise how little hope I have really had, even from the beginning. You are honourable. There have been times when my influence over you was such that you resisted only because you were loyal to yourself--not to Lydia, not to my husband--but to yourself. I came to this house with but one purpose in mind. I came here to take you away from the man who has always stood as your father. I would not have become your mistress--pah! how loathsome it sounds!--but I would have enticed you away, believing myself to be justified. I would have struck James Brood that blow. He would have gone to his grave believing himself to have been paid in full by the son of the woman he had degraded, by the boy he had reared for the slaughter, by the blood------” “In God's name, Yvonne, what is this you are saying? What have you against my--against him?”