ed?"

"When I came in," said Nora, "I went directly to my own rooms. My maid
followed me a few moments later, but just then there was a ring at the
bell. The lateness of the hour gave me a feeling of uneasiness--it were
as though I subconsciously realized who was at the door. When the maid
answered the ring he pushed her aside, and I heard his feet running up
the stairs. The impulse arose in me to lock my door; at any other time I
think I would have done so; but just then I felt aroused--I was bitterly
angry; that he should force himself upon me in such a way made me desire
to face him--to tell him what I thought in very plain words."

"This was not your usual state of mind when he visited you?"

"No." She bent her proud head humbly. "When I first learned his true
character, I left him in just that spirit; but when I had won my way by
hard work, and he began persecuting me, I thought it better to give him
the money he asked and avoid his poisonous falsehoods."

"You were afraid of him?"

"Not of him--but of my public--of the world in general. He threatened me
with the divorce court. Divorce, with its humiliations, its confessions
of failure, its publicity, had always appalled me. The sneer 'another
actress being divorced' made me a coward. He knew that; he had found it
out, somehow; his great talent was in bringing weaknesses to the
surface. He detailed the charges he would bring against me; every one of
them was a lie, but they were so ingenious, so plausible, so unutterably
slimy that I couldn't bear up against them. It was in that way he broke
my spirit."

"There was a hound for you!" said Bat Scanlon. "That is, if I'm not
injuring the hound family by the comparison."

"But last night," said Nora Cavanaugh, "I had lost all this fear of him
and his threats. I don't know why. It wasn't really because he had
forced his way into my room, for he had done that before. It must have
been that this was a sort of culmination--the breaking point. At any
rate, I refused his demands! I answered his sneers in a way which I saw
took him aback; he resumed his old threat of the divorce court, but I
defied him. Then, after about half an hour, he went away."

"That was all?"

"Yes."

The girl stood in such a position that the waning daylight fell full
upon her beautiful face. Ashton-Kirk said, quietly:

"Thank you." Then as she was about to turn toward Scanlon he added:
"Pardon me; you have had a little accident, I notice.