then, just as Hugh would have smiled, the color creeping up into his
lips, Pete's young and honest blood poured over his forehead,
engulfing him, blazing the truth across his face. Bella saw it and
clenched her hands. Sylvie's cheeks, too, caught fire. Hugh turned
from him, blinded by terror, saw Sylvie's trembling mouth in her dyed
countenance, and turned back. He lifted the hand that had held, all
this while, to the chair, and balled it into a fist.

"Don't strike him," said Sylvie quietly, not moving from her place
by the door. "Don't ever strike him again--_Ham Rutherford_!"

Hugh's bones seemed to crumble; his knees bent; he leaned back against
the chair, holding to it behind him with both hands. The gun clattered
to the floor. In the silence Sylvie walked across the room and lifted
her face. As if for the first time they saw her eyes, black and
brilliant and young, sharpening the softness of her features. She
looked at Hugh mercilessly, pitilessly.

"I've been able to see you for a long time now, Ham Rutherford," she
said. "And the instant I first saw you, I knew your name. Ever since
the night you told me that story about the river, I've been watching
you. You are a great and infamous liar! Yes, I know that you once
killed a man for telling you that. Kill me if you like, for I am going
to repeat it after him--a liar, hideous and deformed outside and in.
I have no pity for a liar. Not even your physical misfortune shall
shield you! You have made too great a mockery of it. You brought me
here, blind, as helpless as one of the things you catch in your traps,
and you played the hero with me. And you fed me with lies and lies
and lies. I've eaten and drunk them until I'm sick. Now stand up and
look at the truth. You are to eat that until _you_ are sick.--No,