the strength of his cold passion.

'It is true. By God it is true; every word of it! That letter, which
you want to steal, is only a proof that I went to meet her on Caester
Hill by her own appointment. When I got there, she was waiting for me.
She began to talk about a chalet there, and at first I didn't know what
she meant--'

There was such conviction, such a triumphant truth in his voice, that
Harold was convinced.

'Stop!' he thundered; 'stop, don't tell me anything. I don't want to
hear. I don't want to know.' He covered his face with his hands and
groaned. It was not as though the speaker were a stranger, in which case
he would have been by now well on in his death by strangulation; he had
known Leonard all his life, and he was a friend of Stephen's. And he was
speaking truth.

The baleful glitter of Leonard's eyes grew brighter still. He was as a
serpent when he goes to strike. In this wise he struck.

'I shall not stop. I shall go on and tell you all I choose. You have
called me liar--twice. You have also called me other names. Now you
shall hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if
you won't listen to me some one else will.' Harold groaned again;
Leonard's eyes brightened still more, and the evil smile on his face grew
broader as he began more and more to feel his power. He went on to speak
with a cold deliberate malignancy, but instinctively so sticking to
absolute truth that he could trust himself to hurt most. The other
listened, cold at heart and physically; his veins and arteries seemed
stagnant.

'I won't tell you anything of her pretty embarrassments; how her voice
fell as she pleaded; how she blushed and stammered. Why, even I, who am
used to women and their pretty ways and their passions and their
flushings and their stormy upbraidings, didn't quite know for a while
what she was driving at. So at last she spoke out pretty plainly, and
told me what a fond wife she'd make me if I would only take her!' Harold
said nothing; he only rocked a little as one in pain, and his hands fell.
The other went on:

'That is what happened this morning on Caester Hill under the trees where
I met Stephen Norman by her own appointment; honestly what happened. If
you don't believe me now you can ask Stephen. My Stephen!' he added in a
final burst of venom as in a gleam of moonlight through a rift in the
shadowy wood he saw the ghastly pallor of Harold's face. Then he