"What an awful end! don't you understand?
Devils! devils!" and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the
hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant
fribble of St. James' Street had passed back to the primeval savage
robbed of his mate.
"You give way to your feelings, Asher."
At these words Asher sprang to his feet, yelling:
"Why shouldn't I give way to my feelings? You haven't lost the most
precious thing on God's earth. You never cared for a woman as I do;
perhaps you never cared for one at all. You don't look as if you
did." Owen's face wrinkled; he jibbered at one moment like a
demented baboon, at the next he was transfigured, and looked like
some Titan as he strode about the room, swearing that they should
not get her.
"But it all depends upon herself, Owen; you can do nothing," Harding
said, fearing a tragedy. But Owen did not seem to hear him, he could
only hear his own anger thundering in his heart. At last the storm
seemed to abate a little, and he said that he knew Harding would
forgive him for having spoken discourteously; he was afraid he had
done so just now.
"But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint
was in her blood.
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