omparison," the girl cried defiantly. "There was no question
of comparison."

She said it shamelessly, and it hurt Meredith more than it hurt Guy
Oscard, for whom the sting was intended.

"Comparison or no comparison," said Jack Meredith quickly, with the
keenness of a good fencer who has been touched, "there can be no doubt
of the fact that you were engaged to us both at the same time. You told
us both to go out and make a fortune wherewith to buy--your affections.
One can only presume that the highest bidder--the owner of the largest
fortune--was to be the happy man. Unfortunately we became partners,
and--such was the power of your fascination--we made the fortune; but
we share and share alike in that. We are equal, so far as the--price is
concerned. The situation is interesting and rather--amusing. It is
your turn to move. We await your further instructions in considerable
suspense."

She stared at him with bloodless lips. She did not seem to understand
what he was saying. At last she spoke, ignoring Guy Oscard's presence
altogether.

"Considering that we are to be married to-morrow, I do not think that
you should speak to me like that," she said with a strange, concentrated
eagerness.

"Pardon me, we are not going to be married to-morrow."

Her brilliant teeth closed on her lower lip with a snap, and she stood
looking at him, breathing so hard that the sound was almost a sob.

"What do you mean?" she whispered hoarsely.

He raised his shoulders in polite surprise at her dulness of
comprehension.

"In the unfortunate circumstances in which you are placed," he
explained, "it seems to me that the least one can do is to offer every
assistance in one's power. Please consider me hors de concours. In a
word--I scratch."

She gasped like a swimmer swimming for life. She was fighting for that
which some deem dearer than life--namely, her love. For it is not only
the good women who love, though these understand it best and see farther
into it.

"Then you can never have cared for me," she cried. "All that you have
told me," and her eyes flashed triumphantly across Oscard, "all that
you promised and vowed was utterly false--if you turn against me at the
first word of a man who was carried away by his own vanity into thinking
things that he had no business to think."

If Guy Oscard was no great adept at wordy warfare, he was at all events
strong in his reception of punishment. He stood upright and quiescent,
bet