"Evelin, stop!" "Don't speak to me, you traitor! 'Your precious darling.' Oh, I could kill her! I _will_ kill her!" He could not understand this wild fury, that seemed to be half inspired by a sort of terror. She had turned to the portrait again and was examining it, oblivious, for the moment, to all else. Then suddenly she turned upon him again with blazing eyes. "I will kill her!" she hissed. "I could kill her with _that_," and she pointed to the jeweled stiletto on the wall. She was so magnificent in her rage that he could not help admiring her through it all. The love for him which had aroused this tempest was so fierce that he felt his savage blood beginning to throb with an answering glow. He felt that once more he was about to be a traitor to all that was good within him. The ground was slipping from under his feet. The glamour of her voluptuous beauty was ruling his brain like the fumes of liquor. His eyes, too, were beginning to shine fiercely, but not with anger. "Evelin," he said, "listen. You know I love you and have from the first. She is nothing to me. The words that you overheard were addressed only to the picture. It is my masterpiece. I was not thinking of the original." And down in his heart the small voice was whispering, "Coward--traitor--fool!" But the hot blood of passion was sweeping through his veins, and he heeded it not. He put out his hand and laid it upon her arm. "Don't touch me!" she said, angrily, but the expression in her eyes softened. He saw his advantage and followed it up. "Evelin," he said, huskily, "I love you-- I love you!" Again he laid his hand upon her and this time she allowed it to remain. They were standing near the curtained arch of the adjoining room. He parted back the heavy draperies, and gently drew her within. The savage blood was rioting fiercely within him. He caught both her hands in his and drew her to his embrace. She hid her face upon his shoulder, and would not let him touch her lips. Other than this she made no further resistance. Half dragging, and half carrying her he approached a large divan that stood in a little alcove on the opposite side of the room. Suddenly he took her bodily in his arms and they sank down upon it together. For a second, only; then, with a quick powerful effort she threw him backward and sprang to her feet, staring about her with a wild, startled look in her eyes. Goetze, wholly at a loss to account for the suddenness and fierceness of the resistance, was for a moment stunned. As he recovered himself and made a movement toward her, she gave him one quick, piteous look--a look that recalled to him suddenly and strangely the beautiful, innocent girl whom he had wronged and forgotten--the _face of Eva Delorme_--then, as if seized with sudden panic she sped from the room, out through the dim studio and into the dusky hall-way beyond.