ut, but she would not take it. The strong and proud
spirit was beginning to rise; but the recollection that she had drawn
this on herself held her in check.

"I cannot take back one word in that letter. I made a great mistake in
thinking I could marry you; I see it now more than ever. I have owned my
fault. I have told you I am sorry. I can do no more. As a gentleman you
are bound to release me."

"Of course," he said, with a bitter sneer. "As a gentleman, I am bound
to let you play fast and loose with me to your heart's content. You have
behaved very honourably to me, Miss Danton, and very much like a
gentlewoman. Is it because you have been jilted yourself, that you want
the pleasure of jilting another? It is hardly the thing to revenge
Reginald Stanford's doings on me."

Up leaped the indignant blood to Kate's face; bright flashed the angry
fire from her eyes.

"Go!" she cried, in a ringing tone of command. "Leave my father's house,
Sir Ronald Keith! I thought I was talking to a gentleman. I have found
my mistake. Go! If you were monarch of the world, I would not marry you
now."

He ground his teeth with a savage oath of fury and rage. The letter she
had sent him was still in his hand. He tore it fiercely into fragments,
and flung them in a white shower at her feet.

"I will go," he said; "but I shall remember this day, and so shall you.
I shall take good care to let the world know how you behave to an
honourable man when a dishonourable one deserts you."

With the last unmanly taunt he was gone, banging the house door after
him until the old mansion shook. And Kate fled back to her room, and
fell down on her knees before her little white bed, and prayed with a
passionate outburst of tears for strength to bear her bitter, bitter
cross.

Later in the day a man from the village hotel came to Danton Hall for
the baronet's luggage. Captain Danton, mystified and bewildered, sought
his daughter for an explanation of these strange goings on. Kate related
the rather humiliating story, leaving out Sir Ronald's cruel taunts, in
dread of a quarrel between him and her father.

"Don't say anything about it, papa," Kate said, imploringly. "I have
behaved very badly, and I feel more wretched and sorry for it all than I
can tell you. Don't try to see Sir Ronald. He is justly very angry, and
might say things in his anger that would provoke a quarrel. I am
miserable enough now without that."

Captain Danton promised, and