, thrashed him with all the weight of his
manhood's strength, forced him staggering up and down the open
space that had been cleared for that awful reckoning, making a
public show of him, displaying him to every man present as a
crawling, contemptible thing that not one of them would have owned
as friend. It was a ghastly chastisement, made deadly by the
hatred that backed it. Kieff writhed this way and that, but he
never escaped the swinging blows. They followed him
mercilessly,--all the more mercilessly for his struggles. His coat
tore out at the seams and was ripped to rags. And still Burke
thrashed him, his face grim and terrible and his eyes shot red and
gleaming--as the eyes of a murderer.

In the end Kieff stumbled and pitched forward upon his knees, his
arms sprawling helplessly out before him. It was characteristic of
the man that he had not uttered a sound; only as Burke stayed his
hand his breathing came with a whistling noise through the tense
silence, as of a wounded animal brought to earth. His face was
grey.

Burke held him so for a few seconds, then deliberately dropped the
horse-whip and grasped him with both hands, lifting him. Kieff's
head was sunk forward. He looked as if he would faint. But
inexorably Burke dragged him to his feet and turned him till he
stood before Sylvia.

She was leaning against Kelly with her hands over her face.
Relentlessly Burke's voice broke the silence.

"Now," he said briefly, "you will apologize to my wife for
insulting her."

She uncovered her face and raised it. There was shrinking horror
in her look. "Oh, Burke!" she said. "Let him go!"

"You will--apologize," Burke said again very insistently, with
pitiless distinctness.

There was a dreadful pause. Kieff's breathing was less laboured,
but it was painfully uneven and broken. His lips twitched
convulsively. They seemed to be trying to form words, but no words
came.

Burke waited, and several seconds dragged away. Then suddenly from
the door of the office the girl who had received Sylvia the
previous evening emerged.

She carried a glass. "Here you are!" she said curtly. "Give him
this!"

There was neither pity nor horror in her look. Her eyes dwelt upon
Burke with undisguised admiration.

"You've given him a good dose this time," she remarked. "Serve him
right--the dirty hound! Hope it'll be a lesson to the rest of
'em," and she shot a glance at Piet Vreiboom which was more
eloq