intensely evil over his shoulder at the puny
figure of the man behind him.

"I can imagine you playing any damned trick under the sun to serve your
own interests," he said, his lip curling in in an intolerable sneer. "But
the deepest strategy fails occasionally. You haven't been quite subtle
enough this time."

He was at the door as he uttered the last biting sentence, but so also
was Scott. With a movement of incredible swiftness and impetuosity he
flung himself forward. Their hands met upon the handle, and his remained
in possession, for in sheer astonishment Eustace drew back.

They faced one another in the evening light, Scott pale to the lips, in
his eyes an electric blaze that made them almost unbearably bright,
Eustace, heavy-browed, lowering, the red glare of savagery gleaming like
a smouldering flame, ready to leap forth in devastating fury to meet the
fierce white heat that confronted him.

An awful silence hung between them--a silence of unutterable emotions,
more poignant with passion than any strife or clash of weapons. And
through it like a mocking under-current there ran the distant tinkle of
the piano, the echoes of careless laughter beyond the closed door.

Then at last--it seemed with difficulty--Scott spoke, his voice very low,
oddly jerky. "What do you mean by that? Tell me what you mean!"

Sir Eustace made an abrupt gesture,--the gesture of the swordsman on
guard. He met the attack instantly and unwaveringly, but his look was
wary. He did not seek to throw the lesser man from his path. As it were
instinctively, though possibly for the first time in his life, he treated
him as an equal.

"You know what I mean!" he made fierce rejoinder. "Even you can hardly
pretend ignorance on that point."

"Even I!" Scott uttered a short, hard laugh that seemed to escape him
against his will. "All the same, I will have an explanation," he said.
"I prefer a straight charge, notwithstanding my damned subtlety. You will
either explain or withdraw."

"As you like," Sir Eustace yielded the point, and again he acted
instinctively, not realizing that he had no choice. "I mean that from the
very beginning of things you have been influencing her against me, trying
to win her from me. You never intended me to propose to her in the first
place. You never imagined that I would do such a thing. You only thought
of driving me off the ground and clearing it for yourself. I saw your
game long ago. When you lost one trick