"Drink it every drop. As
I said, you've only run away from one master to fall into another
master's hands. You're a wicked girl. Drink it--every drop. . . . That's
right."
He took the empty glass from her, put it on the table, and then stood and
looked at her meditatively, fastening her eyes with his own. More than
her eyes were fastened, however. Her mind was also under control: but
that was because she believed in him so.
"Yes, you're a wicked girl," he said decisively.
She shuddered and shrank back. In her eyes was a helpless look, very
different from that which she had given not so many days before when,
with Orlando Guise behind her, she had defied her aged husband in his
doorway, and her defiance had moved him from her path. Then she had been
inspired by the fact that the man she loved was near her, that she had
been wrongfully accused and was ready to fight. Afterwards, however, when
she was alone, the sterile presence of Joel Mazarine, his merciless eyes,
his hopeless religious tyranny, had worn upon her as his past violence
had never done.
"Wicked!" Did this man, then, believe her guilty? Did he, of all men,
think that the night upon the prairie alone with Orlando had been her
undoing? Had not the brother of Rigby the chemist borne witness with his
own eyes to her complete innocence? If the Young Doctor disbelieved, then
indeed she was undone.
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