the
expression of her eyes was ineffably touching and beseeching. She
trembled with nervous passion, there were sobs and supplications in her
voice, and Ransom felt himself flushing with pure pity for her pain--her
inevitable agony. But at the same moment he had another perception,
which brushed aside remorse; he saw that he could do what he wanted,
that she begged him, with all her being, to spare her, but that so long
as he should protest she was submissive, helpless. What he wanted, in
this light, flamed before him and challenged all his manhood, tossing
his determination to a height from which not only Doctor Tarrant, and
Mr. Filer, and Olive, over there, in her sightless, soundless shame, but
the great expectant hall as well, and the mighty multitude, in suspense,
keeping quiet from minute to minute and holding the breath of its
anger--from which all these things looked small, surmountable, and of
the moment only. He didn't quite understand, as yet, however; he saw
that Verena had not refused, but temporised, that the spell upon
her--thanks to which he should still be able to rescue her--had been the
knowledge that he was near.

"Come away, come away," he murmured quickly, putting out his two hands
to her.

She took one of them, as if to plead, not to consent. "Oh, let me off,
let me off--for _her_, for the others! It's too terrible, it's
impossible!"

"What I want to know is why Mr. Ransom isn't in the hands of the
police!" wailed Mrs. Tarrant, from her sofa.

"I have been, madam, for the last quarter of an hour." Ransom felt more
and more that he could manage it, if he only kept cool. He bent over
Verena with a tenderness in which he was careless, now, of observation.
"Dearest, I told you, I warned you. I left you alone for ten weeks; but
could that make you doubt it was coming? Not for worlds, not for
millions, shall you give yourself to that roaring crowd. Don't ask me to
care for them, or for any one! What do they care for you but to gape and
grin and babble? You are mine, you are not theirs."

"What under the sun is the man talking about? With the most magnificent
audience ever brought together! The city of Boston is under this roof!"
Mr. Filer gaspingly interposed.

"The city of Boston be damned!" said Ransom.

"Mr. Ransom is very much interested in my daughter. He doesn't approve
of our views," Selah Tarrant explained.

"It's the most horrible, wicked, immoral selfishness I ever heard in my
life