she
cried.

"I don't know what?" I inquired, as I attempted to draw her to me again.

She pushed my hands away with a gesture of despair. Then with an effort
she rose to her feet, and looking at me straight in the face, she said--

"Jim, this must not go on. It is more than I can bear."

I rose to my feet too, my heart beating wildly. "I don't understand
you," I answered, though I comprehended her meaning only too well. "What
must not go on?"

"Our--our engagement," she faltered. She was white to the lips as she
said the words.

I staggered back under the blow, then leaning forward I sought to take
her hand.

"No, Jim, no!" she said. "It's no use; I can never be yours. It is
impossible--quite impossible. My love would be fatal to you! I know it
will! He said so."

"He?" I asked.

She faltered. "Oh! I cannot help believing him. He tells me that I am to
be his." She shuddered. "Jim, you must leave me, and never see me again.
I cannot have your--your blood on my hands."

She held out her slender white fingers, and I saw that the ring which I
had placed there had been removed. Though my brain was awhirl, I tried
my utmost to be calm. I think the effort was successful, and that my
voice was fairly even when I said--

"Come, darling, a promise is a promise, and my own little girl is not
going to break her promise because of the threats of a jealous rival."

She shuddered from head to foot. "You don't know him as I know him," she
murmured. "He would stick at nothing, Jim. I don't think he is a man; he
must be a devil. He can do things no man ever thought of doing."

"You exaggerate his capacities for evil," I said, as equably as I was
able, for her agitation was so great that I feared for her reason. "What
has Mannering been saying to you, for it was he whom I saw behind the
hedge when I brought you out of the storm, I suppose?"

"You saw him?" she queried. "Then it is true. I have been hoping you
would tell me I had been dreaming again."

"I saw nothing very terrible about him," I remarked.

"You don't know him," she said again.

"He will have cause to know me before many hours have passed," I
declared savagely.

She clung to me in terror. "No, Jim. You must not go near him. You do
not know the power he exercises. This afternoon I was sitting thinking
of you when I became conscious that he was telling me to come to him.
There was no reason why I should have thought so. He was not in sight,
but I was b