this house, a fight! I
thought you had better sense--more self-respect--really I did. You
have seriously jeopardized my chances here in Chicago. You have
seriously injured and possibly killed a woman. You could even be
hanged for that. Do you hear me?"

"Oh, let them hang me," groaned Aileen. "I want to die."

He took away his hand from her mouth, loosened his grip upon her arms,
and let her get to her feet. She was still torrential, impetuous,
ready to upbraid him, but once standing she was confronted by him,
cold, commanding, fixing her with a fishy eye. He wore a look now she
had never seen on his face before--a hard, wintry, dynamic flare, which
no one but his commercial enemies, and only those occasionally, had
seen.

"Now stop!" he exclaimed. "Not one more word! Not one! Do you hear me?"

She wavered, quailed, gave way. All the fury of her tempestuous soul
fell, as the sea falls under a lapse of wind. She had had it in heart,
on her lips, to cry again, "You dog! you brute!" and a hundred other
terrible, useless things, but somehow, under the pressure of his gaze,
the hardness of his heart, the words on her lips died away. She looked
at him uncertainly for a moment, then, turning, she threw herself on
the bed near by, clutched her cheeks and mouth and eyes, and, rocking
back and forth in an agony of woe, she began to sob:

"Oh, my God! my God! My heart! My life! I want to die! I want to die!"

Standing there watching her, there suddenly came to Cowperwood a keen
sense of her soul hurt, her heart hurt, and he was moved.

"Aileen," he said, after a moment or two, coming over and touching her
quite gently, "Aileen! Don't cry so. I haven't left you yet. Your life
isn't utterly ruined. Don't cry. This is bad business, but perhaps it
is not without remedy. Come now, pull yourself together, Aileen!"

For answer she merely rocked and moaned, uncontrolled and
uncontrollable.

Being anxious about conditions elsewhere, he turned and stepped out
into the hall. He must make some show for the benefit of the doctor
and the servants; he must look after Rita, and offer some sort of
passing explanation to Sohlherg.

"Here," he called to a passing servant, "shut that door and watch it.
If Mrs. Cowperwood comes out call me instantly."

Chapter XIX

"Hell Hath No Fury--"

Rita was not dead by any means--only seriously bruised, scratched, and
choked. Her scalp was cut in one place. Aileen had re