face. "What are you going to do?" he said.

Grange's hands dropped heavily from the chair-arms, and his whole
great frame drooped slowly forward. He made no further attempt at
evasion, realising the utter futility of such a course.

"Do!" he said wearily. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" said Nick swiftly.

"No, nothing," he repeated, staring with a dull intentness at the
ground between his feet. "It's an old story, and the less said about
it the better. I can't discuss it with you or any one. I think it was
a pity you took the trouble to watch me this afternoon."

He spoke with a certain dignity, albeit he refused to meet Nick's
eyes. He looked unutterably tired.

Nick lay quite motionless in his chair, inscrutably still, save for
the restless glitter behind his colourless eyelashes. At length, "Do
you remember a conversation we had in this room a few months ago?" he
asked.

Grange shook his head slightly, too engrossed with his miserable
thoughts to pay much attention.

"Well, think!" Nick said insistently. "It had to do with your
engagement to Muriel Roscoe. Perhaps you have forgotten that too?"

Grange looked up then, shaking off his lethargy with a visible effort.
He got slowly to his feet, and drew himself up to his full giant
height.

"No," he said, "I have not forgotten it."

"Then," said Nick, "once more--what are you going to do?"

Grange's face darkened. He seemed to hesitate upon the verge of
vehement speech. But he restrained himself though the hot blood
mounted to his temples.

"I have never yet broken my word to a woman," he said. "I am not going
to begin now."

"Why not?" said Nick, with a grin that was somehow fiendish.

Grange ignored the gibe. "There is no reason why I should not marry
her," he said.

"No reason!" Nick's eyes flashed upwards for an instant, and a curious
sense of insecurity stabbed Grange.

Nevertheless he made unfaltering reply. "No reason whatever."

Nick sat up slowly and regarded him with minute attention. "Are you
serious?" he asked finally.

"I am absolutely serious," Grange told him sternly. "And I warn you,
Ratcliffe, this is not a subject upon which I will bear interference."

"Man alive!" jeered Nick. "You must think I'm damned easily scared."

He got up with the words, jerking his meagre body upright with a
slight, fierce movement, and stood in front of Grange, arrogantly
daring.

"Now just listen to this," he said. "I don't care a damn how you take
it,