ntly as he dropped
into a big chair.

"Yes, I will do it," he resolved. "I shall ask Madge to marry me within
a fortnight or three weeks, and we will go down to Nice or Monte
Carlo--I'll risk taking half of that thousand pounds. I dare say my
uncle will be a bit cut up when he hears the news; but I won't tell him
for a time, and after he sees my wife he will be only too eager to
congratulate me. Any man might be proud of such--"

Soft footsteps interrupted his musing, and the next instant the door
opened. Madge entered the room, holding in one white hand a crumpled
letter. She wore a gown of lustrous rose-colored material, with filmy
lace on the throat and bosom, and her splendid hair strayed coyly over
her neck and temples. She had never looked more dazzlingly lovely,
Nevill thought, and yet--

He rose quickly from the chair, and then the words of greeting died on
his lips. He recoiled like a man who sees a ghost, and a sharp and
sudden fear stabbed him. In Madge's face, in her flushed cheeks and
blazing, scornful eyes, he read the signs of a woman roused to supremest
anger.

"How dared you come?" she cried, in a voice that he seemed never to have
heard before. "How dared you? Have you no shame, no conscience? Go! Go!"

"Madge! What has happened?"

"Not that name from you! I forbid it; it dishonors me!"

"I will speak! What does this farce mean?"

"Need you ask? I know all, Victor Nevill! I know that you are a liar
and a traitor--that you are everything wicked and vile, infamous and
cowardly! Heaven has revealed the truth! I know that Diane Merode was
never Jack's wife! It was you, his trusted friend, who stole her from
him in Paris six years ago! You, who found her in London last spring,
and persuaded her to play the false and wicked part that crushed the
happiness out of two lives! That is not all; but it would be useless
to recount the rest of your dastardly deeds. Oh, how I despise and hate
you! Your presence is an insult--it is loathsome! Go! Leave me!"

Nevill had listened to this tirade with a madly throbbing heart, and a
countenance that was almost livid. He was stunned and bewildered; he did
not understand how it was possible for detection to have overtaken him.
His first impulse was to brazen the thing out, on the chance that the
girl's accusations were prompted more by surmise than knowledge.

"It is false!" he cried, striving to compose himself. "You will be sorry
for what you have said. Has Joh