“What am I frightened of him for?” he repeated automatically. “What am I frightened of him for? Why, for you, you stray-running little bitch.” She flushed. The insult went deep into her, right home. “Well, if you’re so dull——” she said, lowering her eyelids, and speaking coldly, haughtily. “If I’m so dull I’ll break your neck the first word you speak to him,” he said, tense. “Pf!” she sneered. “Do you think I’m frightened of you?” She spoke coldly, detached. She was frightened, for all that, white round the mouth. His heart was getting hotter. “You _will_ be frightened of me, the next time you have anything to do with him,” he said. “Do you think _you’d_ ever be told—ha!” Her jeering scorn made him go white-hot, molten. He knew he was incoherent, scarcely responsible for what he might do. Slowly, unseeing, he rose and went out of doors, stifled, moved to kill her. He stood leaning against the garden fence, unable either to see or hear. Below him, far off, fumed the lights of the town. He stood still, unconscious with a black storm of rage, his face lifted to the night. Presently, still unconscious of what he was doing, he went indoors again. She stood, a small stubborn figure with tight-pressed lips and big, sullen, childish eyes, watching him, white with fear. He went heavily across the floor and dropped into his chair. There was a silence. “_You’re_ not going to tell me everything I shall do, and everything I shan’t,” she broke out at last. He lifted his head. “I tell you _this_,” he said, low and intense. “Have anything to do with Sam Adams, and I’ll break your neck.” She laughed, shrill and false. “How I hate your word ‘break your neck’,” she said, with a grimace of the mouth. “It sounds so common and beastly. Can’t you say something else——” There was a dead silence. “And besides,” she said, with a queer chirrup of mocking laughter, “what do you know about anything? He sent me an amethyst brooch and a pair of pearl ear-rings.” “He what?” said Whiston, in a suddenly normal voice. His eyes were fixed on her. “Sent me a pair of pearl ear-rings, and an amethyst brooch,” she repeated, mechanically, pale to the lips. And her big, black, childish eyes watched him, fascinated, held in her spell. He seemed to thrust his face and his eyes forward at her, as he rose slowly and came to her. She watched transfixed in terror. Her throat made a small sound, as she tried to scream. Then, quick as lightning, the back of his hand struck her with a crash across the mouth, and she was flung back blinded against the wall. The shock shook a queer sound out of her. And then she saw him still coming on, his eyes holding her, his fist drawn back, advancing slowly. At any instant the blow might crash into her.