"You can't take me back!" she repeated, with quivering insistence.

"Our marriage was--no marriage! It was a sham--a sham! But even if--even if--it had been--a true marriage--you would have to--set me--free--now." "And why ?" said Vulcan, with his evil smile.
She was white to the lips, but she faced him unflinching.

"There is--a reason," she said.
"In--deed!" He uttered a scoffing laugh of deadly insult.

"The same reason, I presume, as that for which you married me ?" She flinched at that--flinched as if he had struck her across the face.
"Oh, you brute!" she said, and shuddered back against Merryon's supporting arm.

"You wicked brute!" It was then that Merryon wrenched himself free from that paralysing constriction that bound him, and abruptly intervened.
"Puck," he said, "go! Leave us! I will deal with this matter in my own way." She made no move to obey.