"No, I swear. He forced the money as a present. The price he paid was his help to you. As God hears me, that's the truth."
Then, answering more and more questions, she resumed her story.
After Dale's departure she went over to North Ride, thinking that Mr. Barradine was at the Abbey, and that he would come to her at the Cottage. She sent a letter inviting him to do so. There was no answer for four days. Then Mr. Barradine wrote to her from London; and she went up on Friday afternoon, and saw him at Grosvenor Place. "He said he'd engaged rooms for me at an hotel, and I was to go there; and I went there."
"What hotel?"
"The Sunderland Hotel--Alderney Street."
"Go on."
"I waited in the rooms."
"Rooms! You mean one room, you slut!"
"No, there were four rooms--a grand suite."
"Go on."
"He said he would come to me next day, or Sunday at latest. And he didn't come on Saturday--I stopped indoors all day, afraid to go out for fear of meeting you--and he didn't come till Sunday, after lunch."
"Ah! How long did he stay?"
"Till early this morning. Will, let me be--I'm done. You're throttling me."
"Go on. I'll 'aarve it all out of you. Begin at the beginning. It's Sunday afternoon we're talking of--ever since lunch time. There's a many hours to amuse yourselves."
"After dinner he made me dress up."
"What d'you mean?"
"He had brought things in his luggage--fancy dress."
"What dresses?"
"Oh, boy's things--things he'd bought in Turkey, on his travels. He made me act that I was his page--and bring the coffee, and sit cross-legged on the ground."
"Go on."
"No--what's the use?" She was crying now. "Oh, God have mercy, what's the use?"
"Go on."
"No. Kill me, if you want to, and be done with it. I don't care--I'm tired out. What I've gone through was worse than death. I'm not afraid of dying."
She would tell him no more; she defied him; and yet he did not kill her. She lay weeping, moaning, at intervals, repeating that desolate phrase, "What's the use? Oh, what's the use?"
Irremediable loss--it sounded in her voice, it crept coldly in his burning veins, it came spreading, flooding, filling the whole earth in the first faint glimmer of dawn. He sat on the edge of the bed, let his hands fall heavy and inert between his knees, and for a long time did not change his attitude.