"Is it wonderful that I should love you?
Is it... ?" "Stop!" She drew back a pace from him.

There was a moment's silence, during which it seemed she gathered her forces to destroy him, and, in the spirit, he bowed his head before the coming storm.

Then, with a sudden relaxing of the stiffness her lissom figure had assumed, "I think you had better leave me, Sir Rowland," she advised him.

She half turned and moved a step away; he followed with lowering glance, his upper lip lifting and laying bare his powerful teeth.

In a stride he was beside her.
"Do you hate me, Ruth ?" he asked her hoarsely.
"Why should I hate you ?" she counter-questioned, sadly.