Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/263

 names a price, and does not know what the price means, and when the time of settlement comes, will not pay it—cannot pay it—because there is something in her deeper, more overruling than her own conscious will, something that refuses to be betrayed!" The last words were torn out of her throat with desperate emphasis.

John sat watching the woman critically, with an all but unfriendly eye, while she struggled over this utterance, yet the very manner of it compelled him to believe in her absolute sincerity at the moment. Her revelation was truthful, no doubt, but just what was she revealing? The substance was so contrary to his presumption that his comprehension was slow.

"You mean," he began doubtfully—

Marien took instant courage in his doubt; he was almost convinced.

"I mean," she exclaimed, leaping up with an expansive gesture of her arms, while the jewels, like her eyes, blazed with the intensity of her emotion: "I mean that I never paid the price!" Her voice broke into a wild crescendo of laughter that was half delirious in its mingled triumph and joy. Hampstead himself arose involuntarily and stood with a look first of amazement, and then almost of anger, as he suddenly seized her wrists, holding them close in his powerful grasp, while he demanded in tones hoarse with a pleading that was in contrast to his manner:

"Marien, are you telling me the truth?"

The woman faced his searching gaze doubtfully for an instant; then seeing that the man was actually anxious to believe her, she swayed toward him, weakened by relief and joy, as she cried impulsively:

"It is the truth! It is the truth! Oh, God knows it is the truth!"

The fierceness of the minister's grip upon her wrists instantly relaxed, and he lowered her gently to the cushions,