Willard wrenched himself free, and took a sheet of notepaper, an envelop, and a pencil from a pocket. He placed them on the rough table, and stood in the doorway, watching the sunlit lake. His expression was dour, implacable, malignant in its ferocious joy; for he held Power in the hollow of his hand, and would relinquish naught of his vengeful scheme.
"I'm glad to see you are convinced that I mean what I have said," he announced, speaking in a cold, balanced way that Nancy knew of old, and recognized now as sounding the knell of her hopes. "Unless I am mistaken, the canoe is putting off from the hotel. It will be here in twenty minutes. You have just five minutes to make up your mind, and to write a farewell message to Power. I don't care what you say to him, so long as the break is final. You are going with me to Newport, and straight from there to London, where Marten will join us in response to a cablegram from me, telling him that you are ill. You had better stop crying. Nothing that you can say or do, short of loading that gun again and blowing a hole in me, will change either my purpose or my terms. I'll keep my word with regard to Power if you keep yours where Marten is concerned. He must never know. He must never see any change in you. The moment he casts you off because of Power, and I am still alive, you sign Power's death-warrant."
Nancy rose. She was deathly white, and the tears still coursed silently down her cheeks; but despair had benumbed her emotions, and she spoke calmly.
"You are sentencing me to death," she said.
"No. That is not in the bond. You stipulate that I shall return to Marten as his wife, and that I am not to take my own life. But if my heart breaks, and I die, you will have glutted your bitter malice already, and Derry, too, must not provide you with a victim."
"Every woman who has loved will think differently. But you have some notion of what is meant by honor, I suppose? I demand your promise that if I accompany you now, and go back to Marten, and never attempt to meet Derry again--though that would be quite impossible, either for him or for me--you withdraw your threat, and leave him in peace during the remainder of your life."
"I'm not here to receive terms, but to state them."