cried. "Your letter is a forgery. You have
no proof. I won't, I won't, I won't give him up!" she repeated, with the
impotent iteration of an angry child.

Anne pointed disdainfully to the letter that she held. "Here is his
pledged and written word," she said. "While I live, you will never be
his wife."

"I shall be his wife the day after the race. I am going to him in
London--to warn him against You!"

"You will find me in London, before you--with this in my hand. Do you
know his writing?"

She held up the letter, open. Mrs. Glenarm's hand flew out with the
stealthy rapidity of a cat's paw, to seize and destroy it. Quick as she
was, her rival was quicker still. For an instant they faced each other
breathless--one with the letter held behind her; one with her hand still
stretched out.

At the same moment--before a word more had passed between them--the
glass door opened; and Julius Delamayn appeared in the room.

He addressed himself to Anne.

"We decided, on the terrace," he said, quietly, "that you should speak
to Mrs. Glenarm, if Mrs. Glenarm wished it. Do you think it desirable
that the interview should be continued any longer?"

Anne's head drooped on her breast. The fiery anger in her was quenched
in an instant.

"I have been cruelly provoked, Mr. Delamayn," she answered. "But I have
no right to plead that." She looked up at him for a moment. The hot
tears of shame gathered in her eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks.
She bent her head again, and hid them from him. "The only atonement I
can make," she said, "is to ask your pardon, and to leave the house."

In silence, she turned away to the door. In silence, Julius Delamayn
paid her the trifling courtesy of opening it for her. She went out.

Mrs. Glenarm's indignation--suspended for the moment--transferred itself
to Julius.

"If I have been entrapped into seeing that woman, with your approval,"
she said, haughtily, "I owe it to myself, Mr. Delamayn, to follow her
example, and to leave your house."

"I authorized her to ask you for an interview, Mrs. Glenarm. If she has
presumed on the permission that I gave her, I sincerely regret it, and I
beg you to accept my apologies. At the same time, I may venture to add,
in defense of my conduct, that I thought her--and think her still--a
woman to be pitied more than to be blamed."

"To be pitied did you say?" asked Mrs. Glenarm, doubtful whether her
ears had not deceived her.

"To be pitied," repeated