"What?"

"Revenge upon Laurence Thorndyke. It is your right and your duty. His
evil deeds have been hidden from the light long enough. Let his day of
retribution come--from your hand let his doom fall."

She looked up. In the deepening dusk the man's face was set stern as
stone.

"From my hand? How?"

"By simply telling the truth. Come with me to New York; come with me
before Hugh Darcy and Helen Holmes, and tell your story as it stands. My
word for it, there will be neither wedding nor fortune in store for
Laurence Thorndyke after that."

Her black eyes lit and flashed for a moment with some of his own
vengeful fire. She drew her breath hard.

"You think this?" she said.

"I know this. Stern, rigorous justice to all men is Hugh Darcy's motto.
And Miss Holmes is as proud, and pure, and womanly as she is rich and
beautiful. She would cast him off, though they stood at the altar."

Her lips set themselves tighter in that tense line. She sat staring
steadfastly into the fire, her breast rising and falling with the tumult
within.

The little clock on the mantel ticked fast and loud; the ceaseless
patter, patter of the autumnal rain tapped like ghostly fingers on the
pane. Down on the shore below the long, sullen breakers boomed. The
man's heart beat as he waited. He had looked forward to some such hour
as this, for five long years, to plot and plan his enemy's ruin. And in
this girl's hands it lay to-night.

At last.

"She loves him, does she not?" She asked the question huskily.

"Do you mean Miss Holmes? Only too well, I fear, Mrs. Laurence. As I
have said, it comes easily to all of you to lose your hearts to Mr.
Thorndyke."

She never heeded the savage sarcasm of his tone. A tumult of temptation
was warring within her.

"And she is young and gentle, and pure and good?" she went on.

"All that and more. A beautiful and gracious lady as ever drew breath."

"And I am not his wife. And you tell me she loves and trusts him. Yes!
it is easy to do that! If she casts him off she will break her own
heart. She at least has never wronged me--why should her life be
blighted as mine and Lucy West's have been? Mr. Liston, as much as I
ever loved Laurence Thorndyke, I think I hate him to-night--" her black
eyes flamed up in the dusk. "I want to be revenged upon him--I will be
revenged upon him, but not that way."

"Madam, I don't know what you mean."

"I mean this, Mr. Liston--and it is of no use your growing an