ment the animal in him was predominant, overwhelming.
He was furious with the fury of the wounded beast that is beyond all
control.

Scott realized the fact, and grasped his own self-control with a firmer
hand. "It's no good my telling you that I hate my job," he said. "You'll
hardly believe me if I do. But I've got to stick to it, beastly as it is.
I can't stand by and see her married against her will. For that is what
it amounts to. She would give anything she has to be free. She told me
so. I'm infernally sorry. Perhaps you won't believe that either. But I've
got to see this thing through now."

"Have you?" said Eustace, and suddenly his words came clipped and harsh
from between set teeth. "And you think I'm going to endure it--stand
aside tamely--while you turn an attack of stage-fright into a just cause
and impediment to prevent my marriage! I should have thought you would
have known me better by this time. But if you don't, you shall learn. Now
listen! I am in dead earnest. If you don't drop this foolery, give me
your word of honour here and now to leave this matter in my hands
alone,--I'll thrash you to a pulp!"

He spoke with terrible intention. His whole being pulsated behind the
words. And Scott's slight frame stiffened to rigidity in answer.

"You may grind me to powder!" he flung back, and in his voice there
sounded a curiously vibrant quality as of finely-tempered steel that will
bend but never break. "But you can't--and you shan't--force that child
into marrying you against her will! That I swear--by God in Heaven!"

There was amazing force in the utterance, he also had thrown off the
shackles. But his strength had about it nothing of the brute. Stripped to
the soul, he stood up a man.

And against his will Eustace recognized the fact, realized the Invincible
manifest in the clay, and in spite of himself was influenced thereby. The
savage in him drew back abashed, aware of mastery.

Abruptly he released him and turned away. "You're a fool to tempt me," he
said. "And a still greater fool to take her seriously. As I tell you,
it's nothing but stage-fright. She had a touch of it yesterday. I'll come
round presently and make it all right."

"You can only make it right by setting her free," Scott made answer.
"There is no other course. Do you suppose I should have come to you in
this way if there had been?"

Sir Eustace was moving to the door by which he had entered. He flung a
backward look that was