"I thought you had said your very worst--you merciless monster! You, who know so well why I left Paris, almost penniless, to starve. You do not believe your own foul words--liar, slanderer!" He put his hand firmly on her shoulder. "Don't talk rubbish to me. Everyone knows 'it's easy to take a slice from a cut loaf.' If Geoffrey had not been so ridiculously strait-laced, he too could have got all he wanted without any of this stupid talk about marriage. At last you've forced me to tell you exactly what I think of you, and I hope you're satisfied! You know now what I should have to tell that poor boy, so had you not better come to terms with me?" Evarne clenched her teeth ferociously, and, with a low inarticulate cry, sharply struck Morris's hand from off her shoulder. He made an angry gesture, but returning to the arm-chair sat down quietly. Once more she felt that blind fury, that strange blackness and loss of consciousness, stealing over her mind to which she had succumbed six years ago. But now she resisted its domination with all her power. Had she not Geoff to remember? She pressed her lips with such desperate violence against the ring he had given her, that the sharp stones inflicted a tiny cut. It was merely trifling, yet the pain served to recall her to herself to some extent. But she neither could nor would make any effort to guard her speech as she turned upon her traducer. Her very voice sounded strange to her own ears, and she herself was totally unaware of what she was about to utter until the words had already rung out. "It's none of it true--you know it's not true--you know it! You must never repeat to Geoffrey any of the abominable things you've said this evening. It would kill me--I mean it--I have been hardly able to endure it alone! I know well you have no pity. How earnestly have I appealed to that, again and again, always vainly? You never have mercy. But--listen! Are you not afraid of going too far at last, of driving me to desperation? I warn you now. You will tell such evil truth and such malicious lies at your peril. If you do thereby succeed in separating me and Geoff, I shall have nothing left to wish for but revenge." "You're getting theatrical again. Now, Evarne, Evarne!"