And Sharpleigh--"
Her hands caught at her breast. Her gray eyes were pools of flame.
"I went to my room. I didn't lock my door, because never had it been
necessary to do that. I didn't cry. No, I didn't cry. But something
strange was happening to me which tears might have prevented. It seemed
to me there were many walls to my room; I was faint; the windows seemed
to appear and disappear, and in that sickness I reached my bed. Then I
saw the door open, and John Graham came in, and closed the door behind
him, and locked it. My room. He had come into _my room!_ The
unexpectedness of it--the horror--the insult roused me from my stupor. I
sprang up to face him, and there he stood, within arm's reach of me, a
look in his face which told me at last the truth which I had failed to
suspect--or fear. His arms were reaching out--
"'You are my wife,' he said.
"Oh, I knew, then. '_You are my wife_,' he repeated. I wanted to
scream, but I couldn't; and then--then--his arms reached me; I felt them
crushing around me like the coils of a great snake; the poison of his
lips was at my face--and I believed that I was lost, and that no power
could save me in this hour from the man who had come to my room--the man
who was my husband. I think it was Uncle Peter who gave me voice, who
put the right words in my brain, who made me laugh--yes, laugh, and
almost caress him with my hands.
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