continued to confront him
with a face of unflinching defiance.

In a voice whose steadiness surprised her she declared: "The letters are
mine. You shan't have them."

"Undeceive yourself: I'll have them though you never leave this room
alive."

More to give herself time to think than in any hope of moving him, she
began to plead:

"Let me have them, Victor--let me go."

Smiling darkly, he shook his head.

"The letters mean nothing to you. What good--?"

He interrupted impatiently: "I shall publish them."

"Impossible--!"

"But I shall."

Aghast, she protested: "You can't mean that!"

"Why not? The world shall know your true reason for leaving me--that you
were the mistress of another man--and who that man was!"

Staring, she uttered in a low voice: "Never!"

"Or," he amended, deliberately, "you may keep them, burn them, do what you
will with them--on fair terms--_my_ terms."

She said nothing, but her dilate eyes held fixedly to his. He moved a pace
or two nearer, his voice dropped to a lower key, the light she had learned
to loathe flickered in the depths of his eyes.

"Come back to me, Sofia! I can't live without you ..."

Her lips moved to deny him, but made no sound. Now it was revealed to her,
the way.

"Come back to me, Sofia!"

His hand crept along the edge of the table and lifted, quivering, to
capture hers. She steeled herself to endure its touch, against sickening
repulsion she fought to achieve a smile that would carry a suggestion of at
least forgetfulness.

"And if I do--?" she murmured.

He gave a violent start, blood suffused his face darkly, his arms leapt out
to enfold her. She stepped back, evading him with a movement of coquetry
that served, as it was intended, to inflame him the more.

"Wait!" she insisted. "Answer me first: If I return to you--then what?"

"Everything shall be as you wish--everything forgotten--I will think of
nothing but how to make you happy--"

"And I may have my letters?"

He nodded, swallowing hard, as if the concession well-nigh choked him.

Under his gloating gaze her flesh crawled. Only by supreme effort did she
succeed in resisting a mad impulse to risk a rush for door or windows, and
whipped her will into maintaining what seemed to be frank response.

"Very well," she said; "I agree."

Again he offered to touch her, again she moved slightly, eluding him.

"No," she stipulated with an arch glance--"not yet! First prove you mean to
make g