he vowed, the ardor of his passion softening his nature, as
steel is softened in the fire.

"Then be it so," she said, and her tone was less cold, for she began
to glow, as it were, with the ardor of the sacrifice that she was
making--began to experience the exalted ecstasy of martyrdom. "Save him,
and you shall find me ever a dutiful wife to you, my lord--a dutiful
wife."

"And loving?" he demanded greedily.

"Even that. I promise it," she answered.

With a hoarse cry, he stooped to kiss her; then, with an oath, he
checked, and flung her from him so violently that she hurtled to a chair
and sank to it, overbalanced. "No," he roared, like a mad thing now.
"Hell and damnation--no!"

A wild frenzy of jealousy had swept aside his tenderness. He was sick
and faint with the passion of it of this proof of how deeply she must
love that other man. He strove to control his violence. He snarled at
her, in his endeavors to subdue the animal, the primitive creature that
he was at heart. "If you can love him so much as that, he had better
hang, I think." He laughed on a high, fierce note. "You have spoke his
sentence, girl! D'ye think I'd take you so--at second hand? Oh, s'death!
What d'ye deem me?"

He laughed again--in his throat now, a quivering; half-sobbing laugh of
anger--and crossed to the door, her eyes following him, terrified; her
mind understanding nothing of this savage. He turned the key, and flung
wide the door with a violent gesture. "Bring him in!" he shouted.

They entered--Mr. Caryll with the footmen at his heels, a frown between
his brows, his eyes glancing quickly and searchingly from Rotherby to
Hortensia. After him came her ladyship, no less inquisitive of look.
Rotherby dismissed the lackeys, and closed the door again. He flung out
an arm to indicate Hortensia.

"This little fool," he said to Caryll, "would have married me to save
your life."

Mr. Caryll raised his brows. The words relieved his fears. "I am glad,
sir, that you perceive she would have been a fool to do so. You, I take
it, have been fool enough to refuse the offer."

"Yes, you damned play-actor! Yes!" he thundered. "D'ye think I want
another man's cast-offs?"

"That is an overstatement," said Mr. Caryll. "Mistress Winthrop is no
cast-off of mine."

"Enough said!" snapped Rotherby. He had intended to say much, to do some
mighty ranting. But before Mr. Caryll's cold half-bantering reduction of
facts to their true values, he felt h