--with plans
and pictures too. Just think, Beatrice, what it will be when all
England--yes, and all the world--is gloating over your shame, and
half-a-dozen prints are using the thing for party purposes, clamouring
for the disgrace of the man who ruined you, and whom you will ruin. He
has a fine career; it shall be utterly destroyed. By God! I will hunt
him to his grave, unless you promise to marry me, Beatrice. Do that, and
not a word of this shall be said. Now answer."

Mr. Granger sank back in his chair; this savage play of human passions
was altogether beyond his experience--it overwhelmed him. As for
Elizabeth, she bit her thin fingers, and glared from one to the other.
"He reckons without me," she thought. "He reckons without me--I will
marry him yet."

But Beatrice leant for a moment against the wall and shut her eyes
to think. Oh, she saw it all--the great posters with her name and
Geoffrey's on them, the shameless pictures of her in his arms, the
sickening details, the letters of the outraged matrons, the "Mothers of
ten," and the moral-minded colonels--all, all! She heard the prurient
scream of every male Elizabeth in England; the allusions in the
House--the jeers, the bitter attacks of enemies and rivals. Then Lady
Honoria would begin her suit, and it would all be dragged up afresh,
and Geoffrey's fault would be on every lip, till he was _ruined_. For
herself she did not care; but could she bring this on one whose only
crime was that she had learned to love him? No, no; but neither could
she marry this hateful man. And yet what escape was there? She flung
herself upon her woman's wit, and it did not fail her. In a few seconds
she had thought it all out and made up her mind.

"How can I answer you at a moment's notice, Mr. Davies?" she said. "I
must have time to think it over. To threaten such revenge upon me is not
manly, but I know that you love me, and therefore I excuse it. Still, I
must have time. I am confused."

"What, another year? No, no," he said. "You must answer."

"I do not ask a year or a month. I only ask for one week. If you will
not give me that, then I will defy you, and you may do your worst. I
cannot answer now."

This was a bold stroke, but it told. Mr. Davies hesitated.

"Give the girl a week," said her father to him. "She is not herself."

"Very well; one week, no more," said he.

"I have another stipulation to make," said Beatrice, "You are all to
swear to me that for that we