went on rapidly. "But this could
never have been had I still believed what you made me believe. Under
that old shadow I would have gone to the ends of the world rather than
have been near you. Can't you understand? Let us forget it all--let us
begin a new life together."

Mercy shook her head. She was quite unmoved by the girl's appeal.

"There is only one life. There is no beginning again. Those who talk
like that are fools. That is why I say you, too, are unchanged." The
woman's eyes lit. They suddenly became filled with that cold fire
which Joan knew so well. "You think you are changed. You think by an
effort of will--your own, combined with that of another, you have
escaped that which has followed you from your birth. You think that
every disaster that has ever occurred to those with whom you have been
associated, and those who have belonged to you, can be accounted for
naturally. You, with your foolish brain, and the equally foolish brain
of that other. Why, girl, you deny it in every line of the letter you
wrote me. It is there--there in every word, in its very atmosphere.
You are lying to yourself under the influence of this other--who lies
to you. Prove what you say if you want me to believe. The scientific
mind must have proof, undeniable, irrefutable proof. Statements, mere
statements of unbelief are meaningless things which do not convince
even their authors. If you need to convince yourself, and convince me,
then engage yourself to some man, marry him, and I tell you now you
will bring about the direst tragedy that ever befel human creature."

"I--I have done what--what you dare me to do. I have engaged myself to
marry. I am going to marry the man I love more than life itself."

Joan had risen from her seat. She stood erect, her beautiful head
thrown back. An ecstatic light shone in the deep velvet softness of
her eyes. But even as she spoke a sudden paling lessened the delicate
bloom of her cheeks.

The other, with her cold eyes leveled at her, was quick to observe.

"And who is--your victim?"

Joan's pallor increased as she stared for a moment with dilating eyes
at the woman who could be capable of such cruelty. Then, of a sudden,
a protest of such bitterness sprang to her lips that even Mercy
Lascelles was startled.

"Oh, God, was there ever such callous heartlessness in human creature?
Was there ever such madness in sane woman? You ask me to prove my
convictions, you ask me for the one method b