Her scorn lashed him; every word fell like the thong of a knout, and cut into his heart; and all the while his eyes rested on hers with anguished entreaty. "Spare me," he cried, hoarsely, at last. "Spare me! I have tried to spare you!" "You--spare me!" she retorted, with a short contemptuous laugh. "Yes," he said, wetting his lips, "I have tried to spare you! I tried argument, entreaty, all to no purpose! Now--now you compel me to use force!" She glanced at the door, though she seemed to know instinctively that he did not mean physical force. "I would have saved you without this last step," he said, slowly, almost inaudibly. "I call upon you to remember this in the after-time. That not until you had repulsed all my efforts to turn you from your purpose--not until you had lashed me with your scorn and contempt, did I take up this last weapon. If in using it--though I use it as mercifully as I can--it turns and wounds you, bear this in mind, that not until the last did I direct it against you!" Stella put her hand to her lips; they were trembling with excitement. "I will not hear another word," she said. "I care as little for your threat--this is a threat----" "It is a threat," he said, with deadly calmness. "As I do for your entreaties. You cannot harm me." "No," he said; "but I can harm those you love." She smiled, and moved to the door. "Stay," he said. "For their sakes, remain and hear me to the end." She paused. "You speak of shame," he said, "and fear it as naught. You do not know what it means, and--and--I forget the fearful words that stained your lips. But there are others, those you love, for whom shame means death--worse than death." She looked at him with a smile of contemptuous disbelief. She did not believe one word of the vague threat, not one word. "Believe me," he said, "there hangs above the heads of those you love a shame as deadly and awful as that sword which hung above the head of Damocles. It hangs by a single thread which I, and I alone, can sever. Say but the word and I can cast aside that shame. Turn from me to him--to him--and I cut the thread and the sword falls!" Stella laughed scornfully. "You have mistaken your vocation," she said. "You were intended for the stage, Mr. Adelstone. I regret that I have no further time to waste upon your efforts. Permit me to go." "Go, then," he said, "and the misery of those dear to you be upon your hands, for you will have dealt it, not I! Go! But mark me, before you have reached the man who has ensnared you that shame will have fallen; a shame so bitter that it will yawn like a gulf between you and him; a gulf which no time can ever bridge over." "It--it is a lie!" she breathed, her eyes fixed upon his white face, but she paused and did not go. He inclined his head. "No," he said, "it is true, an awful, shameful truth. You will wait and listen?" She looked at him for a moment in silence.