"You would have made a good vivisector!" she
says. Then, before he has time to answer, she turns the handle of
the door behind her, opens it and goes out.
A second after the street door closes, and Stephen stands on the
dining-room mat, looking down the empty hall. Thoroughly disturbed
and excited, with all his own passion surging heavily through his
blood, and her last sentence--that he does not understand any more
than he understands his own cruelty--ringing in his ears, he
hesitates a minute, and then re-enters the dining-room, shuts to
the door, and walks savagely up and down.
"Extraordinary girl!" he mutters. "What does she want? What can I
do? She knows I can say nothing at present, when I'm going into the
work-house myself! But what a splendid creature she is! Lots of
'go' in her. Well, I don't care. I'll have her one day; but there's
no use making a lot of talk about it now."
May walked away from his doorstep, no longer a sane human being,
responsible for its actions. The whole physical, nervous system,
weakened by months of self-control, and night following night of
sleeplessness, was hopelessly dislocated now.
The whole weight of her excited passion, flung back upon the
sensitive brain, turned it from its balance. It had been a
brilliant brain, and that very excitability that had lent its
brilliance was fatal to it now.
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