Thornton at last came back with a team. We were forty miles from
here--we sent the team to the nearest town for gasoline and then motored
back." She stopped--and then, with a catch in her voice: "He--he was
very good to me."

"Good to me"--the words seemed to stab at Madison, seemed to ring in his
ears and goad him with a fiercer jealousy--and her story of the night,
what she had been saying, save those words, was as nothing, meant
nothing, was swept from his consciousness--and only she, standing there
before him, glorious, maddening in her beauty, remained. Soul, mind and
body leaped into fiery passion--she was his, and his she always would
be--those eyes, those lips, the white throat, those perfect arms to
cling about his neck--and all of heaven and hell and earth were naught
beside her.

"I love you!"--his face was white, his words fierce-breathed, almost
incoherent--and he leaned toward her with a sudden, uncontrollable
movement, his arms sweeping out to clasp her. "I love you, Helena--I
love you. Do you understand--it's _you_! You--I love you!"

"You _love_ me!"--she retreated from him, but her head was raised now,
and her voice rang with a bitterness cold as the touch of death. "Love!
What do you know of _love_! We talk plain, you say. Love--love for me!
Passion, vice, lust, sin--and, oh, my God, degradation and misery and
shame--love! Love! That is _your_ love!"

He stood for a moment and stared at her again--and her face was as
pallid ivory. And something seemed to daze him, and he brushed his hand
across his eyes--the logic was faulty, torn and pitiful, and he groped
after the flaw.