iet winced as she heard it, and in a moment with
resolution freed herself from his hold.

She did it in silence, but there was that in the action that deeply
wounded him. He stood motionless, looking at her, a glitter of sternness
in his eyes.

"Juliet," he said after a moment, "you are not treating this matter
reasonably. I admit I tricked you; but my love for you was my excuse. And
those books of mine--especially the one I didn't want you to read--were
never intended for such as you."

She looked back at him with a kind of frozen wonder. "Then who were they
meant for?" she said.

He made a slight movement of impatience. "You know. You know very well.
They were meant for the people whom you yourself despise--the crowd you
broke away from--men and women like the Farringmores who live for nothing
but their own beastly pleasures and don't care the toss of a halfpenny
for anyone else under the sun."

She went back against the table and stood there, supporting herself while
she still faced him. "You forget--" she said, her voice very low,--"I
think you forget--that they are my people--I belong to them!"

"No, you don't!" he flung back almost fiercely. "You belong to me!"

A great shiver went through her. She clenched her hands to repress it. "I
don't see," she said, "how I can--possibly--stay with you--after this."

"What?" He strode forward and caught her by the shoulders. She was aware
of a sudden hot blaze of anger in him that made her think of the squire.
He held her in a grip that was merciless. "Do you know what you are
saying?" he asked.

She tried to hold him from her, but he pressed her to him with a
dominance that would not brook resistance.

"Do you?" he said. "Do you?"

His face was terrible. She felt the hard hammer of his heart against her
own, and a sense of struggling against overwhelming odds came upon her.

She bowed her head against his shoulder. "Oh, Dick!" she said. "It is
you--who--don't--know!"

His hold did not relax, and for a space he said no word, but stood
breathing deeply as a man who faces some deadly peril.

He spoke at length, and in his voice was something she had never heard
before--something from which she shrank uncontrollably, as the victim
shrinks from the branding-iron.

"And so you think you can leave me--as lightly as Lady Joanna
Farringmore left that man I went to see today?"

She lifted her head with a gasp. "No!" she said. "Oh, no!
Not--like that!"

His eyes