ant to. Let me teach you how
to love!"

Joyce seemed paralysed in his arms. She lay as still as death under his
kisses as though mesmerised and dreaming. Emboldened by her silence
Dalton continued to caress her with increasing ardour, till Joyce,
coming suddenly to her senses, was seized with panic and horror.

"Who are you?" she cried in a frenzy of fear, struggling to escape. It
seemed she was entrapped by some human monster in the doctor's likeness,
against whom she was powerless to struggle.

"Why do you ask? You know me well--don't be foolish! Won't you let me
love you?"

"Love me?--like this?--Do you forget I am married?" she gasped, still
struggling to escape. "Let me go. I hate you for daring to touch me--to
kiss me. I hate you! How dare you do it!" Joyce had never known such
terrifying moments, even worse than when the building seemed falling
about her ears. The horrors of the night were multiplying a
thousandfold, now that the doctor had failed her and gone mad.

Dalton made several efforts to pacify her, thinking he had only to deal
with a phase of childishness, but found her unmistakably determined to
break away from him.

"Stop it, and listen to me," he said angrily. "You want it all your own
way, but it is my turn now. Why did you lead me on and tempt me, if you
meant to back out in the end? I could have kissed you twenty times, but
refrained for reasons you would not understand. Now when those reasons
are finally swept aside and I am ready to be your lover, you pretend to
be surprised."

"Surprised! I am horrified! I thought so well of you--I believed you
would respect me, not treat me as you might--Mrs. Fox for instance! Let
me go, you coward and bully!--I have trusted you and treated you as a
brother--for this?--you unspeakable cad!"

Dalton released her instantly, and she burst into tears, crying as
though her heart would break. "Honor warned me, but I would not listen!"
he heard her say amid her sobs.

"What did Honor warn you about?" he asked sternly.

"She said," Joyce sobbed, "to go 'easy with my favours'--that you were
'a man--like most----'"

"Did Honor say that? and why?"

"Because--she thought I was being foolish to--to become
so--friendly--with you--when I am a married woman. She was right! I have
been a fool!" A fresh outburst of weeping.

"Did she say that because of her contempt for me, or because you are a
wife?" he pressed.

"I--don't know. All I know is that she was ri