"But before I consent, there's one condition I must make; one question I must ask you." His voice grew stern, became the voice of the K.C. "Before I take any steps in this matter, I must have your assurance, your definite assurance, that you are not asking for your freedom with a view--with a view"--he hesitated--"to marrying any one else." The blood ebbed from Aliette's cheeks: it seemed to her that her heart had stopped beating. This was the test! One downright lie--and she might win to freedom. That issue she saw clearly. But she saw another issue--the issue between herself and Ronnie. Even though Ronnie himself had suggested that she should divorce Hector, his suggestion--she knew--had implied telling Hector the truth. Surely Ronnie would be the first to reject freedom won at such a price. And, "I've got to play the game," cried the soul of Aliette; "otherwise, even my love for Ronnie becomes a degradation." Yet, still, instinct cried in her for freedom. The decisive seconds lengthened; lengthened; stretched, taut as piano-wire, into the eternities. The scene imprinted itself, sharper than sharpest snapshot, on unfading memory. Always, burnt into memory, would remain Hector, his sandy hair awry, his thin lips parted under the bulbous nose, his jowl set; would remain herself, torture-pale on the rack of indetermination; would remain the light white room, blazing with electrics, the stripes of its wall-paper upright as prison bars. No freedom from that prison--save at the price of truth! But at last, truth spoke. "I cannot give you that assurance, Hector," said Hector's wife. About her, the snapshotted scene trembled, shivered and broke to whirling fragments. She was conscious of Hector's hands, itching to take her by the throat, of Hector's feet, of the red fury in Hector's eyes. His hands itched to strike her. If he struck, she would strike back--madly, through those whirling fragments. But Brunton could not strike; he could not even speak. The insanity of balked desire dumbed his mouth as it numbed his limbs. Nature, fighting like a wild beast, wrenched at the cage of his self-control. He could hear nature wrenching ape-like at his ribs, howling to him: "Kill! Kill both! Kill both the man and the woman!" The blood-lust and the sex-lust were knives in his loins. "You!" he stammered. "You, you----" Then his hands ceased their itching, and the red in his eyes flickered out, smoldering to gray. * * * * * She heard his great feet go creaking across the room, creaking through the doorway, creaking up the staircase. She heard the slam of an upstairs door. She heard herself whisper to the wide-eyed distraught woman who peered out from the mirror over the mantelpiece: "That leaves only one way--only one way to freedom." CHAPTER X 1