pirit humbled, or behold you a suppliant for mercy
at my feet!"

"_Never!_"

"Oh, yes; you may talk, and by my dalliance I have learned you to become
insolent; but now I am done with temporizing. I throw down the gauntlet,
since you have entered the lists, and will compel you to accept the
challenge."

"No, sir, I accept it freely! Don't talk of compelling _me_ to do a thing."

"I'll show you what I'll do! I'll bring tears into those flashing eyes, and
prayers from that venomous tongue! Yes, I will! I have engagements ahead
for two days, and after that you shall have no peace day or night, until I
have forced you to become my wife! I wouldn't marry you at all, but that I
have sworn to you to that effect, and I will keep my word."

"You have uttered many false oaths before; they are so common I do not
regard them."

"Your boasting will soon be done! If need be, I have fifty men under my
command, upon whom I can call for assistance, and not one of them will dare
to disobey my orders."

"Poor, contemptible poltroon! Fifty men against one feeble woman! Verily,
you have a brave set of fellows under a brave commander! But you dare not
call upon your men; I could make forty friends of the number in quick time;
but, even if I should fail, you are too much of a coward to trust fifty men
with your secret, especially as they all know you have a superior in
command, to whom _you_ are amenable."

"Who told you this?"

"Find out as best you can. Perhaps I might suggest to you the possibility
of having already made friends among the members of the Order."

"Order! Who the d----l told you there was an Order?"

"Well, find out."

"I will, then!"

"And you will not!"

"Then there's treason in the League, and I'll ferret it out."

"Do so, by all means!"

She was gaining the victory again, and he changed his tactics.

"I care but little who you may have in league with you, so long as you are
here in my power. No one can enter this room without my consent, and in it
I am safe even from the attack of an army without. Here you are my
prisoner; you think you are safe in the other apartment with the door
locked and bolted on the inside, but you are not. There is a secret passage
to the room, of which you are in total ignorance. I can avail myself of it
at any moment: and you will some time be compelled to sleep. Don't you see
I have you, now?"

This was sheer folly; for it was evidently his best policy to have kept the
k