ife is bound up in you, you
only, you will forgive, will you not?"

Olive Castlemaine never took her eyes from him as he spoke, she seemed
to be trying to read his inmost thoughts. Once or twice her face
softened as he spoke, as though she wanted to yield to his pleading, but
when he had finished she hesitated.

"This is true?" she said quietly. "Every word is true, is it not?"

"By all I hold sacred it is true," he cried. "I had not known you a week
before I loathed the business, and cast it from me as I would cast a
serpent from me. I thought of you only, because I loved you more than
ever man loved woman, because the very thought of life was unbearable
without you."

"Then there is another question I would ask you," she said.

CHAPTER XI

LEICESTER AND WINFIELD

Leicester, whose heart was again beating with hope, took a step nearer
to her as she spoke.

"I will answer any question you ask me, Olive," he said; "let everything
come to light."

"I wish to know," she said calmly, "if what you say is true, why you
told the others that you were only seeking to marry me to prove your
wager."

"It is a lie," said Leicester; "I never told them."

"Less than two months ago you told them. After our wedding-day had been
fixed you told them. You met them in your club, in the same room where I
was first discussed. The two others, and this--gentleman. They besought
you to give up this"--Olive hesitated as though the very thought stung
her--"this wager. But you insisted on paying the money yourself--this
hundred pounds, the price at which I was valued. They urged you, I
repeat, and you refused. They asked you whether you had become reformed
in your opinions and you denied it. Then they accused you of still
playing a part to obtain my consent to marry you, that you might win
your wager. And you admitted it."

"That is a lie."

"I happen to remember the words that were used," said Olive, speaking in
the same hard, quiet voice. "One of them said to you, it does not matter
which, but one of them used these words after you had made certain
statements: 'Then you have been simply playing a part with Miss
Castlemaine?' and you replied, 'And if I have, what is that to you?'
Then this man said, 'You admit it then? All this teetotalism, this tone
of moral earnestness which you have introduced into your speeches, it is
all to win your wager?' And then you answered, 'And if it is, have I
ever pretended to believe in any