And then I felt that I could hate him, as much as I've always hated Di, deep down in my heart.
At that minute I should have liked to kill her, and watch his face when he found her lying dead--out of his reach for ever.
"Besides," he hurried on, "I've never asked her yet if she would marry me, because--my prospects weren't very brilliant.

She knows of course that I love her--" "And if you get the consulship, you'll put the important question ?" I cut him short, trying to be flippant.
"Yes.

But I told you tonight, because I--because you were so kind, I felt I should like to have you know." Kind! Yes, I had been too kind.

But if by putting out my foot I could have crushed every hope of his for the future--every hope, that is, in which my stepsister Diana Forrest had any part--I would have done it, just as I trample on ants in the country sometimes, for the pleasure of feeling that I--even I--have power of life and death.
I swallowed hard, to keep the sobs back.

I'm never very strong or well, but now I felt broken, ready to die.