"But you love me? You love me? Oh, say it to me!" And she was looking not at his counterpart; she was imploring _him_, she was stretching her arms out to _him_, she was veritably making her plea to _him_, as if he were the one who had elicited it. "I will do anything for you--anything!" he would have promised her had not the threat of the stranger so like unto himself interrupted. "Don't mock my patience, Lydia," Hastings heard as once more he shifted his eyes to the speaker. It was maddening how from one to the other of them his sympathies veered. The sepulchral voice of the man seemed to express Hastings' own thoughts; yet her sweet appeal awoke resentful fury for what words he dared say to her. If only Hastings might explain, when she stared so reproachfully, that it was only he who had spoken! Momentarily at a loss, she put the candle down on a little shelf. She rubbed her hands one about the other as if her doing so might lessen the affront which she had now somehow to meet. When at last she spoke, her calm, even tones were like the loveliness of primroses; her eyes were brimming with simple trustfulness. "You own me, O my husband," she said, "heart--heart, body, and soul. Do with me what you will." Why should she be so abject? But when Hastings heard the voice of that other, he was again awed by it. "Think not that I haven't avenged myself!" the voice sneeringly proclaimed. Hastings looked. For the first time he noticed that the stranger's arm was in a sling; there was a mole on the cheek near the corner of those tightly compressed lips. She shook like a leaf in a gale. For dread minutes she faced Hastings tremblingly. Coming nearer to him she murmured: "Are you badly hurt, my--my husband?" Hastings glanced down at his own arm, on which her eyes seemed to rest; then he suddenly beheld, almost as one beholds one's self in a mirror, his counterpart recoil from her reach while he exclaimed scornfully: "Don't--don't touch me! Nor pray think that your wiles will ever win from me any forgiveness." She stopped stock-still. "Is he dead?" she demanded. "Ah, then, you do admit, do you, that you love him?" the other flung at her. "Say it to me! say it to me!" he charged, and he half closed his eyes; "or--by Heaven! I will--" Hastings felt the justice of this accusation, and turned doubtingly back to the girl for her answer. She stared at him, waiting. "What is the use?" she asked in despair. "Would you believe me?" "If you _confess_ I will believe you," stated the stranger. It seemed to Hastings that she grew visibly taller; her face underwent a spasm of pain; and apparently unable longer to remain silent, she cried out to him: "Can it be that for you a confession is more to be believed than aught which has not to be confessed?" And Hastings could feel the touch of her hand cold on his wrist. But the other insisted so convincingly that Hastings looked at him once more with confidence.