"Oh!" cried my stepmother, digging her nails into her palms. If she could have killed me with a look she would have done it--and with shame I admit that I should have deserved a greater punishment than that for expressing myself as I did. But I was stung to utter recklessness, to utter forgetfulness of what was due to one's own sense of self-respect. "Come, come, John," said Maxwell, trying another tack, "you are over-excited. You will be sorry for this to-morrow." "I am sorry for it to-day. It was not to be expected when I courted your sister that you should warn me of the pit into which I was falling--you were too anxious to be rid of her. I see now, but did not see then, the meaning of your covert sneers when you spoke of our married life. By the way, from time to time you borrowed money of me in those days. Are you prepared to repay it?" "What I owe you," he replied, with a dark look, "I will repay--with interest. As for money, I never had one farthing from you." He turned to my stepmother. "He is good at invention, this John of ours." "He is good at anything low and vile," she said. "Mark my words--one of these days he will commit murder." "You nurse your hatred well," I responded. "And now, quit my house." They retreated before me, and I drove them, as though they were cattle, to the street door. "John," said Maxwell, with a sudden show of amiability, "this is all nonsense, you know. Let us be friends." He held out his hand, and the impulse was upon me to strike it down, but I merely gave him a contemptuous look, and threw open the street door. As they stood on the threshold Louis came up, and I think for a moment that Maxwell, with this reinforcement, had an idea of forcing his way in again. "Do you see what he is doing?" cried my stepmother to her son. "The low wretch is turning us out of the house." "What else can you expect?" asked Louis, the scar on his forehead becoming blood-red in my frowning glance. "We shall come back," said Maxwell, and I slammed the door in his face. My conduct was brutal; I admit it. It would have been manlier had I behaved with dignity, but during that evil time all my impulses were evil. There is an element of savagery in every human being, and it leaped forth and mastered me, and robbed sorrow of its crown. It led me into further excesses, and had not an angel appeared and rescued me, I might have deserved all the obloquy that had been thrown upon me, and have become utterly, irretrievably lost. It was evening, and I lingered in the passage outside Barbara's door, which was locked against me. Then I called aloud: "Annette, are you there?" At first no answer; then, the question repeated, the reply: "Yes, monsieur." "Open the door." "But, monsieur, it is madame's orders," she began, but I did not allow her to finish. "Open the door." "I dare not disobey madame." "Open the door."