he said, "I ...
heard a chair move ... in the next room...."

"What?" cried Loring.

He sat erect. His face went scarlet, then white.

"_What?_" he said again.

Belinda nodded.

"Just that ... a chair ... scraped, you know, as if some one had brushed
against it ... in a hurry."

Loring had his lip between his teeth. His eyes looked black as when he
had been drinking heavily.

"You think ... it was ... Sophy?" he said at last.

"Yes," said Belinda.

"Great God!" groaned Loring.

Belinda's face changed. She took down her arms, and bent forward.

"Look here, Morry," said she in a low, concentrated voice. "_You've got
to play square with me._"

Loring gave her a decidedly unloverlike glare.

"Oh, confound you, Linda," he growled, "don't turn heroics on me at this
hour of the morning. I tell you we're in a hell of a mess."

"_I'm_ not," said Belinda.

Loring couldn't help a grin.

"You're not, hey? Well, I like your colossal cheek," he said.

Belinda shot out her hand, and grasped him firmly by the arm with her
white, soft fingers in which the little bones were strong as steel.

"You look at me, Morry," she commanded. "You look me right in the eyes."

He did so, unwillingly.

"Well?" he said.

"I want you to understand," said Belinda, "that when you took me in
your arms yesterday and kissed me ... like that ... _you took me for
good_."

"Oh, go to the devil, Linda! I tell you I'm not in the mood for
high-mucky-muck talk."

"I don't care what mood you're in, and my talk's plain English," said
Belinda. "You played with me two years ago, but you can't play with me
now. I belong to the man who kissed me as you kissed me yesterday, and
_that man belongs to me_."

"Oh, for God's sake, cut it out!" said Morris, with exasperation. "Who
do you think you're talking to?..."

"The man that belongs to me," retorted Belinda fiercely, gritting her
white teeth at him. "The man that belongs to me ... that has always
belonged to me ... ever since that first time he kissed me ... two years
ago--when I was only a child...."

"I don't believe you ever _were_ a child," put in Loring moodily. "I'll
bet you cast some unholy spell in your cradle...."

"Well ... whatever I was or wasn't-- I'm a woman _now_," said Belinda.
"A woman who loves--who's been loved back--who'll die ... who'll _kill_
before she sees that love wrenched from her."

All blazing, she threw herself suddenly upon his breast. Her soft mouth
of