this outburst because I fell asleep while you were
playing?" he asked curtly.

She was silent, battling with the emotion that was shaking her.

"Because"--he went on with a tinge of contempt in his voice--"if so,
it's a ridiculous storm in a tea-cup."

"'Ridiculous'! . . . Yes, that's all it would be to you," she answered
bitterly. "But to me it's just like a light flashed on our future life
together. We're miles apart--miles! We haven't a thought, an idea, in
common. And when it comes to music--to the one big thing in my
life--you brush it aside as if it could be taken up or put down like a
child's musical box!"

Roger looked at her. Something of her passionate pain and resentment
was becoming clear to him.

"I didn't know it meant as much to you as that," he said slowly.

"It's everything to me now!" she burst out wildly. "The only thing I
have left--left of my world as I knew it."

His face whitened, and a curious, strained brilliance came into his
eyes. She had touched him an the raw, roused his mad jealousy of all
that had been in her life of which, he had had no share.

"The only thing you have left?" he repeated, with a slow, dangerous
inflection in his voice. "Do you mean that?"

"Yes!"--smiting her hands together. "Can't you see it? There's . . .
_nothing_ . . . here for me. Are we companions, you and I? We're
absolute strangers! We don't think, or feel, or move in the same
world."

"No?"

Just the brief monosyllable, spoken as coolly as though she had
remarked that she didn't like the colour of his tie. She looked up,
bewildered, and met his gaze. His eyes frightened her. They were
ablaze, remorseless as the eyes of a bird of prey. A sudden terror of
him overwhelmed her.

"Roger!" she cried. "We can't marry! Let me go--release me from my
promise! Oh!"--breaking down all at once--"I can't bear it! I can't
marry you! Let me go--oh, please let me go!"

There was a pause--a pause during which Nan could feel her heart
leaping in her body like some terrified captive thing. Then, Roger
made a movement. Instinctively she knew it was towards her and flung
out her arms to ward him off. But she might as well have opposed him
with two straws. He caught both wrists in one of his big hands and
bent her arms downwards, drawing her close to him till she lay
unwillingly against his breast, held there in a grasp like iron.

"Will I release you?" he said savagely. "No, I will _not_!