She could have cried out aloud, and falling on her knees have confessed
everything, begging God's forgiveness and Angelo's and Mary's. But
instead, because she clung to this one desperate hope of keeping Angelo,
she sat erect and firm, her ice-cold hands tightly grasping the edge of
the hammock, one on either side of her body. If she had let go or tried
to stand up, she knew that she must have collapsed. Grasping the edge of
the hammock seemed to lend strength and power of endurance not only to
her body but to her spirit as well. She gave back Mary's gaze steadily,
and was hardly aware of turning her eyes for an instant from the still,
pure face which had never looked so gentle or so sweet; yet she must
have glanced away, for she warmed slowly with the consciousness that
Idina Bland was confused, and that Miss Jewett too was under the
influence of some new emotion which made her appear less hard, less dry,
more like a human being. Hope ran through the veins of Marie in a vital
tide. The desperate instinct of self-preservation had put the right
weapon in her hand. She must go on and use it mercilessly, for she had
touched the weak spot in her enemy's armour. Those two women did not
know everything, after all. Idina had somehow overreached herself. It
was certain that the allies were pausing to recover strength.
"Are you the woman to whom my cousin refers, Miss Grant?" Angelo asked;
and his voice was the voice of the judge, not the protector.
Mary thought of Vanno.
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