and came out and stood on the stair. Then he grasped her shoulder with the other hand, and he began to shake and twist her.
She could see into his heart as into clear water, to the ugly snags and creeping things at the bottom. She saw that the temptation had come on him to fling her down: but she saw also that it was immediately overcome. He knew she read his thoughts. "The height is not much," he muttered; "you might sprain an ankle but not break your neck. I will not hurt you; do not fear. Hurt you! Good God! I would not hurt you, not give you one moment's pain; I would bear hours of agony rather than make you suffer for one second. Rut what must be, must be! There is no way out of the marsh but over the dyke. There is no peace which is not won by a fight and wounds. Let me go back." He drew her in at the door, a ferocious expression flickered over his face, like phosphorescent illumination over dead fish.
"I cannot endure this longer. Mehalah! you are killing me. This is worse than the fire-juice in my eyes; you are drenching my heart and brain in vitriol, I feel it gnawing and stinging and blackening as it consumes a way to the inner core, leaving charred matter behind."
"What am I doing, to make you suffer?" she asked.
"You are doing all you can. I cannot, I will not endure that agony. Have you seen the coal heap in the forge, how the fire rages and glows within before the blast? Water is thrown on without quenching the fire, it only intensifies its heat. At last the black mass cracks on all sides and the white fury shoots out in spits and knives of flame. It is so with me. The fire is here." He smote his breast and then his brain. "It is raging, panting, whitening, intensifying, and at last it will break out on all sides. Who is blowing the fire into vehemence? It is you—you—you!"
He gathered himself up, like a crouching beast, as though to spring on her and strangle or tear her; but she stepped back beyond his spring.
"I give you no occasion for this," she said; "you speak and act like a madman."
"It is you who drive me to act and speak like one,"
