flirt like you can be transformed into a virtuous and amiable
wife. It may prove a difficult process, I admit, and perhaps not
altogether a pleasant one. But I shall not shirk it on that account."

He leant back against the mantelpiece with a gesture that plainly said
that so far as he was concerned the matter was ended.

But it was not so with Doris. She stood before him for several seconds
absolutely motionless, all the vivid colour gone from her face, her blue
eyes blazing with speechless fury. At length, with a sudden, fierce
movement, she tore the ring he had given her from her finger and held it
out to him.

"Take it!" she said, her voice high-pitched and tremulous. "This is the
end!"

He did not stir a muscle.

"Not yet, I think," he said.

She flashed a single glance at him in which pride and uncertainty were
strangely mingled, then made a sudden swoop towards the fire. He read
her intention in a second, and stooping swiftly caught her hand. The
ring shot from her hold, gleamed in a shining curve in the firelight,
and fell with a tinkle among the ashes of the fender.

Caryl did not utter a word, but his face was fixed and grim as, still
tightly gripping the hand he had caught, he knelt and groped among the
half-dead embers for the ring it had wantonly flung there. When he found
it he rose.

"Before you do anything of that sort again," he said, "let me advise you
to stop and think. It will do you no harm, and may save trouble."

He took her left hand, paused a moment, and then deliberately fitted the
ring back upon her finger. She made no resistance, for she was
instinctively aware that he would brook no morefrom her just then. She
was in fact horribly scared, though his voice was still perfectly quiet
and even. Something in his touch had set her heart beating, something
electric, something terrifying. She dared not meet his eyes.

He dropped her hand almost contemptuously. There was nothing lover-like
about him at that moment.

"And remember," he said, "that no experiment can ever prove a success
unless it is given a fair trial. You will continue to be engaged to me
until I set you free. Is that understood?"

She did not answer him. She was pulling at the loose ends of her veil
with restless fingers, her face downcast and very pale.

"Doris!" he said.

She glanced up at him sharply.

"I am rather tired," she said, and her voice quivered a little. "Do you
mind if I say good-night?"

"Answer m