She stopped. His eyes seemed to be consuming her. In spite of herself, she shrank, averting her own. “At your own risk,” he said again, and very slowly his arm fell. There followed a silence that was somehow appalling. She stood as one paralysed. She would have returned to her chair, but lacked the strength. So he was in earnest, this extraordinary man. He actually meant to hold her against her will. And wherefore? She almost challenged him with the question, but something held her back—perhaps it was the consciousness of that intolerable heat of which she had been aware with the utterance of his last words. She spoke at length. “I don’t understand you. What is the matter?” He made a harsh sound in his throat; it was as though he choked a laugh. “Do you really wish me to be more explicit? If so, by all means let us drop all subterfuge and come down to bare facts! Why are you trying to creep out of the house by stealth? Answer me!” It was he then who meant to force a battle. The sudden knowledge gave her back her courage, but she knew it for the courage of desperation. She lifted her head and faced him. “What is that to you? Does the fact that I have been your guest—your helpless and involuntary guest—entitle you to control my movements or to demand an account of them? I resent your attitude, and I absolutely repudiate your authority. You may keep me here against my will—if you are coward enough. But you will never—however long you wait—induce me to confide my affairs to you. And let me tell you this! When I leave this house, I shall never—no, never—enter it again!” Fiercely she flung the words, answering challenge with challenge, realizing that it was only by launching herself on the torrent of her anger that she could hope to make any headway against him. For he stood in her path like an opposing force, waiting to hurl her back. Panting, she ceased to speak. The effort of her defiance was beginning to cost her dear. Almost by instinct she groped for the table and supported herself against it, conscious of a whirling tumult in her brain that she was powerless to still. Too late she realized that the power to which she had entrusted herself had betrayed her. She saw it in his face—the sudden mockery that gleamed in his eyes. He spoke, and his words cut with a stabbing accuracy straight through the armour of her indignation. “Had I known—what I now know,” he said, “What I might have known from the beginning from the manner of your coming, I certainly would not have entertained you in this house. I have my sisters to think of.” “Ah!” she said, and no more; for words failed her. The horror of it overwhelmed her utterly and completely. It seemed to her that she had never known the meaning of pain until that moment—pain that bereft her of all normal self-control—pain that made her gasp in sheer agony.