"Then I will order my servants to turn you out." "But, Rupert, think. Kaituna will learn who I am." "Better that than she should be contaminated by your presence." The woman clasped her hands together, and then in a frenzy of rage dashed across the room to pull him away from the bell-rope. "You shall not! you shall not!" she shrieked, her fierce eyes flashing with mad anger. "I will stay! I am a reckless woman! I love my child! I will not go!" "I have the power to make you go, and I will," said Pethram, coldly. "Are you a man or a devil?" "I am what you have made me." "What I made you!" she hissed, in a voice shaking with bitter scorn. "No! it is you who have made me what I am. I loved you when I married you. As there is a God above, I loved you; but with your cold, cruel words, with your sarcastic sneers, with your neglect you killed that love. I had no friend. I was only a girl, and you crushed my heart. I was dying for the love and tenderness which you refused to give me." "I was a good husband." "As the world says, 'A good husband.' You gave me a good home. You surrounded me with every comfort. To all outward appearance, I had nothing left to desire. Ah, how little you, with your cold, cruel nature, know what a woman wants. I desired love! I desired tenderness, but I did not get it. Oates was kind to me. He cheered my loneliness, and in a moment of madness I went with him. I regretted it the moment afterwards. I have regretted it ever since. God knows how miserable my life has been. Now I have a chance of happiness, I will take advantage of it. I will stay with my child; you can do what you like, you can say what you like--I stay." Without changing a muscle of his face, Sir Rupert heard his miserable wife to the end, then advanced once more to the bell. "You have said all; now go, or I will have you turned out." Mrs. Belswin laughed scornfully. "Do what you like," she said, indifferently. "You have said what you will do; I have said what I will do." For the first time Sir Rupert hesitated, and let his hand fall without ringing the bell. "You fiend!" he said, in a cold fury. "Having made my life miserable before, you now come to do so again. But I knew I was never safe from your malice. Dombrain, to whom I told all your vile conduct, said you would come again." "He said that? Dombrain said that?" "Yes." "And he is a fit judge of my conduct!" she burst out in passionate anger. "Do you know who he is? Do you know what he was? A convict--an embezzler--a man who has served his term in prison." "My solicitor--Mr. Dombrain?" he said, incredulously. "Mr. Dombrain!" she scoffed, sneeringly. "Mr. Damberton is his real name, and it was by knowing what he was and what he is, that I forced him to receive me as your daughter's companion. I would have spared him had he spared me, but now--well, you know the worst of him."