Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/157

Rh “What of all this?” said Mason. “You obtained what you desired. Why do you harass me with this nonsense?”

“I obtained it,” repeated the woman, bitterly. “Yes, thanks to your devilish ingenuity, I obtained it, but at what a cost! I have the money, but it is daubed over with the blood of a man's heart. It has the price of a man's honor stamped on the face of every coin. I hate it all. Everything I see, every thread that touches me, taunts me with the shame of such a sacrifice.”

The woman's voice was firm, but her figure trembled like a tense wire.

“Madam.” said Randolph Mason, “you annoy me. I have no interest in this drivel.”

“No interest in it?” cried the woman. “You, you have no interest in it? Was it not you who did it? You and the devil himself? You concocted this plan. You said go to him, and tell him, and he would know what to do. Your fiendish ingenuity saw what would result, but you did not tell me. You did not tell me that this man would be compelled to rip his life in two like a cloth to save me, and that he would do it. If I had known