admired, he could not help distrusting.

Norman battled with his insanity an hour, then sent for Miss Hallowell.

The girl had lost her look of strength and vitality. She seemed frail
and dim--so unimportant physically that he wondered why her charm for
him persisted. Yet it did persist. If he could take her in his arms,
could make her drooping beauty revive!--through love for him if
possible; if not, then through anger and hate! He must make her feel,
must make her acknowledge, that he had power. It seemed to him another
instance of the resistless fascination which the unattainable, however
unworthy, has ever had for the conqueror temperament.

"You are leaving?" he said curtly, both a question and an affirmation.

"Yes."

"You are making a mistake--a serious mistake."

She stood before him listlessly, as if she had no interest either in
what he was saying or in him. That maddening indifference!

"It was a mistake to tattle your trouble to Tetlow."

"I did not tattle," said she quietly, colorlessly. "I said only enough
to make him help me."

"And what did he say about me?"

"That I had misjudged you--that I must be mistaken."