"A month, eh?" he went on. "You've been here a month, have you? And he's known it; he's kept me here, by God, through fear, that's all. I confess it to you! I'd have been gone long ago but I was afraid of him! He's intimidated me on the pretext of doing it for my own good while he could steal my wife ... my wife ... you-u-u...."
He advanced slowly, reasonless eyes on hers now, and Ann backed swiftly, putting the table between them, watching him with fear stamped on her features.
"Ugh! The snake! The poison, lying, grovelling--"
The sharpness of her cry, the way she straightened and stamped her foot and vibrated with indignation broke through his rage, even, and he stopped.
"You don't know what you're saying." Her voice quivered. "You're accusing the best man friend you've ever had; you're cursing one of the best men that ever walked ground, and you're doing it without reason!"
"Without reason, am I?" he parried, quieter, breathing hard, but controlling his voice. "It's without reason when he lives with me a month, seeing my wife day after day, knowing I've not seen her in years and then never breathing a word about it? It's without reason when he opens this room to you ... a room he's never let me look into, and tells you to use it? It's no reason when he runs away to town rather than face me here in your presence? Can you argue against that?
"And it's without reason when you stand there flushed to your hair, you guilty woman?"
He thumped the table with his fist. "You guilty woman," he repeated, just above a whisper. "You guilty--My wife, conspiring with your lover while he keeps me here by force, by brute force. Can you argue against that ... against that?"
It was the great moment of Ann Lytton's life. It seemed as though the inner conflict was causing congestion in her chest, stilling her heart, clogging her breathing, making her blind and powerless to move or speak or think. It was the last struggle against her old manner of thought, against the old Ann, the strangling for once and for all that narrow conscience, the wiping out of that false conception of morality, for she emerged from her moment of doubt, of torment, a beautiful, brave creature. Her great sacrifice had been offered; it had been repulsed with contempt and now she stood free, ready to fight for her spiritual honor, her self-respect, in the face of a world's disapproval, if that should become necessary.