He gave a wrathful exclamation, snatched the glass from her, so that the remainder of the wine was shot over the carpet, and said: "Little hypocrite! You would sooner drink to my death!" "Oh, no," said she, "I desire your health. You are a very sick man just now, in mind if not in body." "Sick or well, I am your husband--in sickness or in health, you know." She answered patiently. "Yes; I know. I am not likely to forget." She took out a tiny handkerchief, wiping her trembling lips with it. The action drew his attention to the tourmalin ring she wore above her wedding-ring. He snatched at her hand, pulled off the ring, and flung it into the heart of the fire which glowed dully afar off in the old-fashioned steel grate, for the day had not been warm. "An end of that," he said. "I only used it to get it out of your mother's hands." She drew in her breath in a long sigh, but made no other demonstration, though she felt her head swim. He was holding her with both hands, and his touch seemed as if it seared. He looked as if he longed to provoke some sign of acute feeling. "You are proud," he said, under his breath. "Proud as Lucifer. But I'll tame your pride." There seemed no answer to this, and she attempted none. "You are going to be the passive martyr, the persecuted victim, are you?" he went on. "That is the rôle you select? But don't try me too far, or you may provoke me to _make_ you show yourself in your true colours." She raised her hands to her mouth with a little moan. "Oh!" she faltered, shaken with the storm of her wounded heart. "Isn't it enough for you to know me broken? Must you see the tears and hear the cries before you can be satisfied? Well, you will--very soon. I--don't feel as if I can bear much more. But to-night you have hit too hard. You have blunted all feeling. I _could_ not care, whatever happened. I have got past that." With a sudden gasping for breath, she made an effort to rise. For a moment he seemed minded to constrain her, but almost immediately let her go. She stood, supporting herself a moment against the corner of the table, then tried a few uncertain steps, and collapsed softly in a little forlorn heap of silk and gauze upon the carpet, midway to the door. Gaunt rose, his face dark with annoyance. This was altogether so unlike his own forecasts of the scene that he was bewildered. He had expected coaxings, blandishments, the pleadings and wiles with which Virginia the elder had made him so intimately acquainted. He remembered how, when in the old days his sullen temper had made him harsh, she had hung about him, how sweetly and pathetically she had put him in the wrong, how deftly she had smoothed his ruffled fur and achieved her own ends whatever they were.