he
same time too outright for successful equivocation. Defeat was always
a staggering blow to him, since he had no art to mask it. And now,
lacking the sagacity to swallow his mortification and to bide his
time, he could only suffer, rending himself in lieu of another on whom
to pour his fury.

In the midst of this futile passion his roving eyes fell on
Marion. She lay where she had fallen, in a dead faint, limp on the
red-and-yellow rug. Seth stared at her a full minute, while an
indefinable suspicion grew in the back of his brain. She had said,
"I've brought him here to make peace with you." And Haig himself had
given the lie to that speech! What did it all mean? By God, he would
find out!

"Come, Claire!" he said. "Attend to Marion!" And he began to loosen
her fingers from his coat.

But she only clutched it the tighter.

"You'll go!" she cried.

"No! Not to-night!"

"You promise?"

"Yes! Yes!" he growled.

She looked steadily up at him, questioning, fearful, until he bent
down and kissed her.

"There!" he said, roughly and yet not ungently. "Now go to Marion!"

They picked her up, and laid her on the couch at one side of the big
room; and Claire unbuttoned her dress at the throat, and bathed her
face and neck with cold water, while Seth rubbed and slapped her
hands.

Her first impulse, on opening her eyes and seeing Claire and Seth
leaning over her, was to raise her head, and look toward the door. She
saw only a patch of darkness, empty and still. Then she remembered how
she had heard his mocking voice fade away in the night; and her eyes
returned to Seth and Claire. Their faces told her what to expect: and
she knew that they were right in demanding, as they would demand, the
fullest explanation.

"Water, please!" she murmured, moistening her dry lips with her
tongue.

She sat up, slowly emptied the glass that Claire placed in her
trembling hand, then buttoned her collar over her bare throat, and
began to pin up the locks of hair that had fallen about her face and
neck. Her hands, she thought, were very thin and white. She had never
fainted before, and was still a little frightened and surprised.

"What does it all mean, Marion?" demanded Huntington.

"Wait, Seth, can't you?" warned Claire. Then to Marion: "There's no
hurry, dear. When you feel better."

But her eyes denied her words. There was indeed no way out of it.
Marion must speak, and without delay.

"I'm cold," she said, shivering.