y are--married to him?" Merryon spoke the words
as it were through closed lips. He had a feeling as of being caught in
some crushing machinery, of being slowly and inevitably ground to
shapeless atoms.

Puck lifted her head at length and spoke, not looking at him. "I went
through a form of marriage with him," she said, "for the sake
of--of--of--decency. I always loathed him. I always shall. He only wants
me now because I am--I have been--valuable to him. When he first took me
he seemed kind. I was nearly starved, quite desperate, and alone. He
offered to teach me to be an acrobat, to make a living. I'd better have
drowned myself." A little tremor of passion went through her voice; she
paused to steady it, then went on. "He taught by fear--and cruelty. He
opened my eyes to evil. He used to beat me, too--tie me up in the
gymnasium--and beat me with a whip till--till I was nearly beside myself
and ready to promise anything--anything, only to stop the torture. And
so he got everything he wanted from me, and when I began to be
successful as a dancer he--married me. I thought it would make things
better. I didn't think, if I were his wife, he could go on ill-treating
me quite so much. But I soon found my mistake. I soon found I was even
more his slave than before. And then--just a week before the
fire--another woman came, and told me that it was not a real marriage;
that--that he had been through exactly the same form with her--and there
was nothing in it."

She stopped again at sound of a low laugh from Vulcan. "Not quite the
same form, my dear," he said. "Yours was as legal and binding as the
English law could make it. I have the certificate with me to prove this.
As you say, you were valuable to me then--as you will be again, and so I
was careful that the contract should be complete in every particular.
Now--if you have quite finished your--shall we call it confession?--I
suggest that you should return to your lawful husband and leave this
gentleman to console himself as soon as may be. It is growing late, and
it is not my intention that you should spend another night under his
protection."

He spoke slowly, with a curious, compelling emphasis, and as if in
answer to that compulsion Puck's eyes came back to his.

"Oh, no!" she said, in a quick, frightened whisper. "No! I can't! I
can't!"

Yet she made a movement towards him as if drawn irresistibly.

And at that movement, wholly involuntary as it was, something in