Page:The woman, the man, and the monster (IA womanmanmonster00dawe).pdf/355

 favour with you? Have I grown cold, do you think?”

“You were always cold to me,” he snarled, “whatever you were to others.”

A curiously penitent smile crossed her face.

“Perhaps I asked for more love than you ever offered; perhaps I was half afraid of my- self. A woman can never be sure that she knows herself; how then can a man know her? But what if that self-knowledge has come to me at last—what if I know that I can make you happy?”

“Still I shall kill you,” he said; “‘there can be no doubt then.”

“But if you kill me you will destroy your own chance of happiness. Is it love you want, Digby? Then let me give you love—love that burns like fire, that thrills the brain, that mad- dens the blood. All this I can give you; all this I will give you.”

A gleam, even more hateful than that of madness, began to burn in his glance. Yet her gaze never faltered; the alluring smile added a subtler fascination to the bewitching mouth. Through her red lips the very breath of passion seemed to pant for freedom. Grad-