larming rapidity.

"Dorothy--my darling Dorothy!" he cried, clasping her hands and
showering kisses upon her upturned face. "Oh, Dorothy, my little bride
that is to be, why did you fly from me so cruelly the morning after the
great ball at our home in Yonkers?"

"Do not speak to me! Stop this coach immediately, and let me get out!"
she cried. "How dare you attempt to thrust your unwelcome face in my way
again? Go back to Iris Vincent, for whom you left me; or to Nadine Holt,
whose heart and whose life you have wrecked. I know you for what you
are, and I abhor you a thousand times more than I ever imagined I
fancied you."

"Do you mean that you do not wish to go back to the Yonkers home and
marry me?" he demanded.

But before she could find time to reply, he went on:

"You were terribly foolish to grow so jealous of Iris Vincent as to run
away from me. Why, I--I was merely flirting with her because she was
pretty.

"Why, she is married now, and at the other end of the world, for aught I
know or care. I can only add that, from the moment I learned of your
disappearance, I have been searching for you night and day. Oh, Dorothy,
now that I have found you, do not treat me like this, I beseech you! Let
us kiss and make up. We are driving direct toward the parsonage, where
we are to be married.

"Few men would care for you so much upon making the terrible discovery
that you had fled from home and directly to the arms of an old lover,
remaining under his roof until you were cast out from it by that lover
himself. I do not know even what your quarrel with him was about. I do
not ask to know. The object which took me there, I do not mind telling
you. I had a quarrel with your lover, Jack Garner. We were to meet early
this morning to settle the affair of honor; but as he did not show up to
make the arrangements, I forced my way into his house, in order that I
might not miss him. I heard him turning you from his door. Then
amazement held me spell-bound. I shall take this into account when--when
I have my settlement with him, later on. Any indignity offered to you
shall be my affair, as your husband, to settle."

Dorothy had drawn back from him listening with horror to the words that
fell from his lips.

"The duel must be averted at any cost," she told herself; yet she could
not--oh, she could not!--marry him. "I must think of some way out of
this," thought Dorothy, in the wildest agony. "I must save myself, and
save him