"You are really coming to the Wintertons?" she asked.

"I have promised," he answered. "Caroline has bribed me. I am going to
take you in to dinner."

"Will you drive home with me now?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I have another call to make," he said, a little grimly.

Saton was still in the half darkened library, sitting with his back
turned to the light, and his eyes fixed with a curious stare into
vacancy, when the door opened, and Rochester entered unannounced.
Saton rose at once to his feet, but the interrogative words died away
upon his lips. Rochester's fair, sunburnt face was grim with angry
purpose. He had the air of a man stirred to the very depths. He came
only a little way into the room, and he took up his position with his
back to the door.

"My young friend," he said, "it is not many hours since you and I came
to an understanding of a sort. I am here to add a few words to it."

Saton said nothing. He stood immovable, waiting.

"Whatever your game in life may be," Rochester continued, "you can
play it, for all I care, to the end. But there is one thing which I
forbid. I have come here so that you shall understand that I forbid
it. You can make fools of the whole world, you can have them kneeling
at your feet to listen to your infernal nonsense--the whole world save
one woman. I am ashamed to mention her name in your presence, but you
know whom I mean."

Saton's lips seemed to move for a moment, but he still remained
silent.

"Very well," Rochester said. "There shall be no excuse, no
misunderstanding. The woman with whom I forbid you to have anything
whatever to do, whom I order you to treat from this time forward as a
stranger, is Pauline Marrabel."

Saton was still in no hurry to speak. He leaned a little forward. His
eyes seemed to burn as though touched with some inward fire.

"By what right," he asked, "do you come here and dictate to me? You
are not my father or my guardian. I do not recognize your right to
speak to me as one having authority."

"It was I who turned you loose upon the world," Rochester answered. "I
deserve hanging for it."

"I should be sorry," Saton said coldly, "to deprive you of your
deserts."

"You have learned many things since those days," Rochester declared.
"You have acquired the knack of glib speech. You have become a past
master in the arts which go to the ensnaring of over-imaginative
women. You have mixed with quack spiritualists and self-style