nstinct to protect. In an
instant Mrs. Fielding was clinging to her, clinging desperately,
frantically, like a terrified child.

"Oh, don't go! Oh, don't leave me!" she gasped. "Juliet! Juliet!
Stay--oh, stay!"

She could not refuse the appeal. It went straight to her heart. She put
her arms about the quivering, convulsed form and held it close.

"I can't go!" she said hurriedly to the squire.

"Stay then!" he said curtly.

Then abruptly he stooped over the trembling, hysterical woman. "Vera," he
said, "stop it at once! Do you hear me? Stop it!"

He did not raise his voice, but his words had a pitiless distinctness
that seemed somehow more forcible than any violence. Vera Fielding shrank
closer to Juliet's breast.

"Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" she moaned, still shaken from head to
foot with great sobs she could not control.

"She won't go if you behave yourself," said the squire grimly. "But if
you don't, I'm damned if I won't turn her out and deal with you myself."

"Don't be brutal!" breathed Juliet.

He gave her a swift, fierce look, but she met it unflinching and as
swiftly it fell away from her. He took one of his wife's feverish,
clutching hands and firmly held it.

"Now you listen to me!" he said. "I don't want to bully you but I can't
and won't have this sort of thing. It's damnably unfair to everybody. So
you pull yourself together and be quick about it!"

The trembling hand clenched in his grasp. "I hate you!" gasped Mrs.
Fielding furiously. "Oh, how I hate you!"

The man's mouth took an ominous downward curve. "I've heard that before,"
he said. "Now that's enough. We're not going to have a scene in front of
Miss Moore. If you can't control yourself, out she goes."

"She won't go," flashed back Mrs. Fielding. "She's on my side. Ask her if
she isn't! She won't leave me to your tender mercies again. She knows
what they are like."

"Hush!" Juliet said. "Don't you know there isn't a man living who can
stand this? Be quiet, my dear, for heaven's sake! You're making the most
hideous mistake of your life."

She spoke with most unwonted force, and again the squire's steely eyes
shot upwards, regarding her piercingly. "You're quite right," he said
briefly. "I won't stand it. I've stood too much already. Now, Vera, you
behave yourself, and stop that crying--at once!"

There was that in his tone that quelled all rebellion. Vera shrank closer
to Juliet, but she began to make some feeble efforts t