The unworthy suspicion of her, which
had been in his mind all through the interview, now forced its way
outwards to expression at last.
"No woman ever used a man as you use me without some reason for it," he
said. "You have kept your secret wonderfully well--but sooner or later
all secrets get found out. I know what is in your mind as well as you
know it yourself. You are in love with some other man."
Isabel's face flushed deeply; the defensive pride of her sex was up
in arms in an instant. She cast one disdainful look at Moody, without
troubling herself to express her contempt in words. "Stand out of my
way, sir!"--that was all she said to him.
"You are in love with some other man," he reiterated passionately. "Deny
it if you can!"
"Deny it?" she repeated, with flashing eyes. "What right have you to ask
the question? Am I not free to do as I please?"
He stood looking at her, meditating his next words with a sudden and
sinister change to self-restraint. Suppressed rage was in his rigidly
set eyes, suppressed rage was in his trembling hand as he raised it
emphatically while he spoke his next words.
"I have one thing more to say," he answered, "and then I have done. If
I am not your husband, no other man shall be. Look well to it, Isabel
Miller. If there _is_ another man between us, I can tell him this--he
shall find it no easy matter to rob me of you!"
She started, and turned pale--but it was only for a moment. The high
spirit that was in her rose brightly in her eyes, and faced him without
shrinking.
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