Trix wanted to feel horrified at his conduct--at its brutality, its licence, its absolute ignoring of all the canons of decent conduct. Look at him, as he stood there reading her letter, jeering at it in a rancorous scorn and a derision charged with hatred! She could not concentrate her indignation on her own wrong. Suddenly she saw his too--his and Fricker's. She was outraged; but the outrage persisted in having a flavour of deserved punishment. It was brutal; was it unjust? On that question she stuck fast as she looked up and saw him reading her letter. The next instant he tore it across and flung it into the grate behind him. 'You'll do as he wishes!' he sneered. 'He knows you will! Yes, he knows you're for sale, I suppose, just as I know it, and as Fricker knows it. He can bid higher, eh? Well, I hope he'll get delivery of the goods he buys. We haven't.' He buttoned his frock-coat and looked round for his hat. 'Well, I've got a lot to do. I must go,' he said, with a curious unconscious return to the ordinary tone and manner of society. 'Good-bye!' 'Good-bye, Mr. Chance,' said Trix, stretching out her hand towards the bell. 'I'll let myself out,' he interposed hastily. Trix rose slowly to her feet; she was rather pale and had some trouble to keep her lips from twitching. Speak she could not; her brain would do nothing but repeat his words; it would not denounce him for them, nor impugn their truth; it would only repeat them. Whether they were just or not was a question that seemed to fall into the background; it was enough that anybody should be able to use them, and find her without a reply. Yet when he was gone her feeling was one of great relief. The thing had been as bad as it could be, but it was done. It was over and finished. The worst had come--was known, measured, and endured. At that price she was free. She was degraded, bruised, beaten, but free. Chastened enough to perceive the truths with which Beaufort Chance had assailed her so unsparingly, she was not so changed in heart but that she still rejoiced to think that the object towards which she worked, in whose interest she had exposed herself to such a lashing, was still possible, really unprejudiced, in fact hers if she would have it. The letter was gone; but the promise of the letter lived. Suddenly another thing occurred to her. What about Dramoffskys? What about her precious money? There she was, in the hands of these men whom she had flouted and enraged, so ignorant that she could do nothing for herself, absolutely at their mercy. What would they do? Would they wash their hands of her? 'Well, if they do--and I suppose they will--I must sell everything directly, even if I lose by it,' she thought. 'That's the only thing, and I sha'n't be quite ruined, I hope.'