t?"

"Perhaps."

He was silent for a moment. Perhaps it was because he thought of the
night which led to this meeting, and as a consequence felt ashamed.
Once, on his way thither, he had thought of telling her the whole story,
but now he would rather have suffered death than that she should know.
Even then he determined that if either of the men who were parties to
the shameful compact, should divulge the secret he would make their
lives a hell. For Radford Leicester was not making love to gain a wager.
A passion to which he had hitherto been a stranger had gripped him body
and soul. At that moment Olive Castlemaine was everything to him. He
would have bartered his immortal soul to gain her love. The cold,
cynical crust of the man's nature had been broken, and the hot lava
which had been lying beneath now burst forth.

"And you care for that," he said.

"Yes, I care for that."

"And if I had been what you call a good man, what then?"

"I do not know."

"But it would influence you?"

"It would influence me greatly."

"You believe in all you have heard?"

"You have denied nothing--and no, Mr. Leicester, even if I loved a bad
man, I would crush that love--that is, as you have been speaking of it."

He called to mind what he had said to Sprague and Purvis on the night
the compact was made, and while there was a feeling of joy in his heart
at her words, the memory of that night pierced him like a poisoned
arrow. This woman had disproved his creed by a single sentence. For he
knew that she meant it. There was no weak, faltering hesitancy in her
words. The flash of her eyes, the tone of her voice, told him that she
had uttered no idle threat. Here was a nature as strong as his own, a
nature which loved goodness as much as he had pretended to despise it.

He felt that the ground was slipping under his feet, but he retained his
calm.

"Wait a moment," he said, "there is something else I want to say to
you."

CHAPTER VII

A WOMAN'S HEART

If a few months before any one had told Radford Leicester that in order
to gain a woman's good opinion he would excuse his own mode of life, he
would have either grown angry or laughed that man to scorn. Yet he
contemplated doing it at that moment. Perhaps if Sprague or Purvis had
been in the room at that moment, they would not have been sure whether
he were in earnest, or whether he were playing a part in order to win
his wager. For they believed him to be capable