word of
explanation. Perhaps--you may not find it so easy as it seems."

Lucille swept around.

"What do you mean?"

Lady Carey shrugged her shoulders.

"You are in a curious mood, my dear Lucille. What I mean is obvious
enough. Brott is a strong man and a determined man. I do not think that
he will enjoy being made a fool of."

Lucille was indifferent.

"At any rate," she said, "I shall not see him. I have quite made up my
mind about that."

"And why not, Countess?" a deep voice asked from the threshold. "What
have I done? May I not at least know my fault?"

Lady Carey rose and moved towards the door.

"You shall have it out between yourselves," she declared, looking up,
and nodding at Brott as she passed. "Don't fight!"

"Muriel!"

The cry was imperative, but Lady Carey had gone. Mr. Brott closed the
door behind him and confronted Lucille. A brilliant spot of colour
flared in her pale cheeks.

"But this is a trap!" she exclaimed. "Who sent for you? Why did you
come?"

He looked at her in surprise.

"Lucille!"

His eyes were full of passionate remonstrance. She looked nervously from
him towards the door. He intercepted her glance.

"What have I done?" he asked fiercely. "What have I failed to do? Why
do you look as though I had forced myself upon you? Haven't I the right?
Don't you wish to see me?"

In Brott's face and tone was all the passionate strenuousness of a great
crisis. Lucille felt suddenly helpless before the directness of his
gaze, his storm of questions. In all their former intercourse it had
been she who by virtue of her sex and his blind love for her had kept
the upper hand. And now the position was changed. All sorts of feeble
explanations, of appeals to him, occurred to her dimly, only to
be rejected by reason of their ridiculous inadequacy. She was
silent-abjectly silent.

He came a little closer to her, and the strength of the man was manifest
in his intense self-restraint. His words were measured, his tone quiet.
Yet both somehow gave evidence of the smouldering fires beneath.

"Lucille," he said, "I find you hard to understand to-day. You have
made me your slave, you came once more into my life at its most critical
moment, and for your sake I have betrayed a great trust. My conscience,
my faith, and although that counts for little, my political career, were
in the balance against my love for you. You know which conquered. At
your bidding I have made myself the jest of eve