Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/89

Rh "It's nothing to you?" Rose cried. "Then if it isn't, perhaps you pity me?" She shone at him as if with the glimpse of a new hope.

He took it in, but he only, after a moment, echoed, ambiguously, her word. "Pity you?"

"I think you would, Dennis, if you understood."

He looked at her hard; he hesitated. At last he returned quietly, but relentingly: "Well, Rose, I don't understand."

"Then I must go through it all—I must empty the cup. Yes, I must tell you."

She paused so long, however, beautiful, candid and tragic, looking in the face her necessity, but gathering herself for her effort, that, after waiting a while, he spoke. "Tell me what?"

"That I'm simply at your feet. That I'm yours to do what you will with—to take or to cast away. Perhaps you'll care a little for your triumph," she said, "when you see in it the grand opportunity I give you. It's your turn to refuse now—you can treat me exactly as you were treated!"

A deep, motionless silence followed, between them, this speech, which left them confronted as if