“Do you know what you are saying, old woman?--tempting me, tempting him, to murder? You needn’t look to the door: there is not a soul that could hear you--Andrew’s fast asleep, and you wouldn’t call him, to bear witness against your son.” “No,” she said, “I would not call him to bear witness--against--my son.” “Sign! sign! sign!” cried Lew; “do you think we’ll wait for you all night?” “I will not sign.” “Old woman! you wretched old fool, trusting, I suppose, to that fellow there! Better trust me than him. Look here, no more of this. You shall sign whether you will or not.” He seized her hand as he spoke, thrust the pen into it, and forced it upon the paper. Her little wrist seemed to crush together in his big hand. She gave a faint cry, but no more. Her fingers remained motionless in his hold. He was growing red with impatience and fury, his eyes fierce, his mouth set. She looked up at him for a moment, but said not a word. “Will you do it? will you do it?--at once!--when I tell you.” “No.” He let her hand go and seized her by the shoulders. He had by this time forgotten everything except that he was crossed and resisted by a feeble creature in his power. And in this state he was appalling, murder in his eye, and an ungovernable impulse in his mind. He seized her by her shoulders, the white shawl crumpling in soft folds not much less strong to resist than the flesh beneath in his hands, and shook her, violently, furiously, like a dog rather than a man. “Do what I tell you, woman! Sign!” “No.” She thought that she was dead. She thought it was death, her breath going from her, her eyes turning in their sockets. Next moment a roar of rage seemed to pass over her head, she was pushed aside like a straw flung out of the fiery centre of the commotion, the grip gone from her shoulders, and she herself suddenly turned as it were into nothing, like the chair at which she clutched to support herself, not knowing what it was. She had a vision for a moment of Robbie, her son, standing where she had stood, tearing and tearing again in a hundred pieces a paper in his hands, while Lew against the opposite wall, as if he too had been dashed out of the way like herself, stood breathing hard, his eyes glaring, his arm up. Next moment she was pushed suddenly, not without violence, thrust out of the room, and the door closed upon her. All was dark outside, and she helpless, broken, bleeding she thought, a wounded, lacerated creature, not able to stand, far more unable in the tumult and trouble of body and soul to go away, to seek any help or shelter. She dropped down trembling upon her knees, with her head against that closed door. CHAPTER XXI.