y to yourself and your wife, stop! There is
the door; go, and remember that from now we are strangers, and if ever
you meet Carol again--no, I won't say that. God grant that you never
may see her again, for if you do----"

"Well, and suppose I do, Miss Murray, what then?" he interrupted, with
his hand on the handle of the door. He had never heard such words from
the lips of either man or woman before, and that personal vanity which
is a characteristic even of the worst of men was grievously outraged.

"Never mind what I mean," she said, cutting him short again. "I have
said all that I am going to say except this--if ever you meet Carol
again, for her sake and yours, for your wife's and your children's when
they come, _don't see her_. Now go!"

There was a something in her voice and in her manner which said even
more than her lips had done. Something which not only struck him dumb
for the time being, but which also drove home into his soul a conviction
that this girl, outcast and social pariah as she was, not only held his
fate in her hands, but that she possessed some unknown power over his
destiny, that she knew something which, if spoken, might blast the
bright promise of his life and overwhelm him in irretrievable ruin.

She had called him a cad, and as his thoughts flew back to that morning
in Vane Maxwell's rooms at Oxford, a pang of self-conviction told him
that she had spoken justly. He felt, too, that he was hopelessly in the
wrong, that by his suggestion he had sorely insulted her, and that in
exchange for his insult she had given him mercy. He would have given
anything to know the real meaning of her words, and yet he dare not even
ask her.

He looked round at her once and saw her, standing rigid and impassive
waiting to be relieved of his presence. His thoughts went back a few
months to the times when those little dinners of four had been so
pleasant, and when this girl, who was now looking at him like an
accusing angel, had matched even Carol herself in the gaiety of her
conversation and the careless use she made of her mother-wit, and he
tried hard to say something which should in some way cover his retreat,
but the words wouldn't come, and so he just opened the door and walked
out.

Dora heard the street door bang behind him, and then her tensely-strung
nerves relaxed. She dropped into an easy chair, clasped her hands over
her temples, and whispered:

"Oh dear, oh dear, how is all this going to end