said, almost panting out the words.

Caryl turned his eyes back to the mare.

"I mean to marry you--yes," he said. "I think you forget that you
accepted me of your own accord."

"I was mad!" she broke in passionately.

"People in love are never wholly sane," he remarked cynically.

"I was never in love with you!" she cried. "Never, never!"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Nevertheless you will marry me," he said.

"Why?" she gasped back furiously. "Why should I marry you? You know I
hate you, and you--you--surely you must hate me?"

"No," he said with extreme deliberation, "strange as it may seem, I
don't."

Something in the words quelled her anger. Abruptly she abandoned the
struggle and fell silent, her face averted.

"And so," he proceeded, "we may as well decide upon the wedding-day
without further argument."

"And, if--if I refuse?" she murmured rather incoherently.

"You will not refuse," he said with a finality so absolute that her
last hope went out like an extinguished candle.

She seized her courage with both hands and turned to him.

"You will give me a little while to think it over?"

"Why?" said Caryl.

"Because I--I can't possibly decide upon the spur of the moment," she
said confusedly.

Was he going to refuse her even this small request? It almost seemed
that he was.

"How long will it take you?" he asked. "Will you give me an answer
to-night?"

Her heart leapt to a sudden hope called to life by his words.

"To-morrow!" she said quickly.

"I said to-night."

"Very well," she rejoined, yielding. "To-night, if you prefer it."

"Thanks. I do."

They were his last words on the subject. He seemed to think it ended
there, and there was nothing more to be said.

As for Doris, she sat by his side, outwardly calm but inwardly shaken to
the depths. To be thus firmly caught in the meshes of her own net was an
experience so new and so terrifying that she was utterly at a loss as to
how to cope with it. Yet there was a chance, one ray of hope to help
her. There was Major Brandon, the man who had offered her freedom. He
was to have his answer to-day. For the first time she began seriously to
ponder what that answer should be.

CHAPTER V

THE WAY TO FREEDOM

So far as Doris was concerned the aviation meeting was not a success.
There were some wonderful exhibitions of flying, but she was too
preoccupied to pay more than a very superficial attention to what she
saw.

They lunch