“It was Mount Dunstan,” she flung at him.  “The church-bells were tolling for him when I rode away.  I could not stay to hear them.  It killed me—­I loved him.  You were right when you said it.  I loved him, though he never knew.  I shall always love him—­though he never knew.  He knows now.  Those who died cannot go away when that is holding them.  They must stay.  Because I loved him, he may be in this place.  I call on him——­” raising her clear voice.  “I call on him to stand between us.”

He backed away from her, staring an evil, enraptured stare.

“What!  There is that much temperament in you?” he said.  “That was what I half-suspected when I saw you first.  But you have hidden it well.  Now it bursts forth in spite of you.  Good Lord!  What luck—­what luck!”

He moved to the door and opened it.

“I am a very modern man, and I enjoy this to the utmost,” he said.  “What I like best is the melodrama of it—­in connection with Fifth Avenue.  I am perfectly aware that you will not discuss this incident in the future.  You are a clever enough young woman to know that it will be more to your interest than to mine that it shall be kept exceedingly quiet.”

The white fire had not died out of her and she stood straight.

“What I have called on will be near me, and will stand between us,” she said.

Old though it was, the door was massive and heavy to lift.  To open it cost him some muscular effort.

“I am going to the horses now,” he explained before he dragged it back into its frame and shut her in.  “It is safe enough to leave you here.  You will stay where you are.”

He felt himself secure in leaving her because he believed she could not move, and because his arrogance made it impossible for him to count on strength and endurance greater than his own.  Of endurance he knew nothing and in his keen and cynical exultance his devil made a fool of him.

As she heard him walk down the path to the gate, Betty stood amazed at his lack of comprehension of her.

“He thinks I will stay here.  He absolutely thinks I will wait until he comes back,” she whispered to the emptiness of the bare room.

Before he had arrived she had loosened her boot, and now she stooped and touched her foot.

“If I were safe at home I should think I could not walk, but I can walk now—­I can—­I can—­because I will bear the pain.”

In such cottages there is always a door opening outside from the little bricked kitchen, where the copper stands.  She would reach that, and, passing through, would close it behind her.  After that something would tell her what to do—­something would lead her.

She put her lame foot upon the floor, and rested some of her weight upon it—­not all.  A jagged pain shot up from it through her whole side it seemed, and, for an instant, she swayed and ground her teeth.

“That is because it is the first step,” she said.  “But if I am to be killed, I will die in the open—­I will die in the open.”