I will never--never as long as I live--speak to you again!"
Her blazing eyes, and the positive fury of her voice, must have carried
conviction to the most obtuse, and this Fletcher certainly was not. He
stood a moment, looking down at her with an insolence that might have
frightened her a little earlier, but which now she met with a new
strength that he felt himself powerless to dominate. She was not
thinking of herself at all just then, and perhaps that was the secret of
her ascendancy. His own brute force crumbled to nothing before it, and
he knew that he was beaten.
Without a word he bowed to her, smiling ironically, and turned upon his
heel.
She drew a great breath of relief as she saw him go. She felt as though
a horrible oppression had passed out of the atmosphere. That fairy haunt
with its bubbling fountain and sapphire lamps was no longer an evil
place.
She bent again over her senseless companion.
"Ronald!" she whispered. "My dear, my dear, can't you hear me? Oh, if
only you would open your eyes!"
She soaked her handkerchief in the water and held it to the wound upon
his forehead. Even as she did it, she felt him stir, and the next moment
his eyes were open, gazing straight up into her own.
"Damn the brute!" said Lord Ronald faintly.
"You are better?" she whispered thankfully.
His hand came upwards gropingly, and took the soaked handkerchief from
her.
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