lance around.
"Quick, for we shall not be alone much longer. Tell me, I say!"

She only wept, her face hidden in her hands. Marius's temper, a fragile
thing at best, gave way.

"Never think to keep it from me! I'll have it whether thou wilt or no,"
he said roughly. The idea of an intruder upon what he had suddenly come
to consider his own domain was not to be tolerated. Varia again
struggled, with violence, and finding herself held fast, screamed
loudly.

"Hush, little fool!" Marius exclaimed. "I am not hurting thee!"

"Let the girl go, lord!" said a voice behind them. Marius turned his
head, to see a figure bearing down upon them, lean and tall, with a
shock of black hair and angry eyes. Varia, turning at the same instant
in Marius's grasp, saw the man, and cried:

"Make him to let me go! He hath tried to make me tell thy name--do not
thou tell it!"

"So!" Marius exclaimed in triumph, catching the clew. "Thou art the
man--thou!" His tone held wrath and amazed disgust.

The slave stood his ground.

"Let the girl go!" he repeated. It might well have been that never had a
man used such a tone to Marius in his life before. From a slave it was
not to be brooked.

"Get you gone, you dog!" he said savagely. "Later I'll settle with you,
if it be that my suspicions be correct. How dare you enter here
unbidden?"

"I heard my lady cry out," Nicanor answered. Varia's voice broke into
his speech.

"I tell thee make him to let me go! He is a beast, and I hate him--I
hate him!"

Rather than prolong the scene before a slave, Marius let her go. She ran
to Nicanor and caught his arm.

"Take me away!" she cried through tears. "I will not stay with him!"

"It were best that you should go," Marius agreed promptly. "As for you,
fellow--"

"He shall come with me!" Varia said imperiously. "You will harm him--I
will not have him stay. Go yourself, bad man!"

"There will be no harm done, my lady," Nicanor said gently. There was
all possible respect in his voice, but Varia went, obedient, with a last
look backward on the threshold. Marius turned upon Nicanor.

"Now, who are you?" he asked curtly.

"You see me--a slave," Nicanor made reply. His voice was sullen; he was
cornered, and he knew it. Also he was powerless, unable to strike a blow
in his own defence; and who would see that justice was done a slave?

Marius sat down on the couch and eyed him. Nicanor returned his gaze
with watchful eyes alert for any move.

"I