Merryon's brain seemed to burst. He saw all things a burning,
intolerable red. With a strangled oath he caught her back, held her
violently--a prisoner in his arms.

"By God, no!" he said. "I'll kill you first!"

She turned in his embrace. She lifted her lips and passionately kissed
him. "Yes, kill me! Kill me!" she cried to him. "I'd rather die!"

Again the stranger laughed, though his eyes were devilish. "You had
better come without further trouble," he remarked. "You will only add to
your punishment--which will be no light one as it is--by these
hysterics. Do you wish to see my proofs?" He addressed Merryon with
sudden open malignancy. "Or am I to take them to the colonel of your
regiment?"

"You may take them to the devil!" Merryon said. He was holding her
crushed to his heart. He flung his furious challenge over her head. "If
the marriage was genuine you shall set her free. If it was not"--he
paused, and ended in a voice half-choked with passion--"you can go to
blazes!"

The other man showed his teeth in a wolfish snarl. "She is my wife," he
said, in his slow, sibilant way. "I shall not set her free.
And--wherever I go, she will go also."

"If you can take her, you infernal blackguard!" Merryon threw at him.
"Now get out. Do you hear? Get out--if you don't want to be shot!
Whatever happens to-morrow, I swear by God in heaven she shall not go
with you to-night!"

The uncontrolled violence of his speech was terrible. His hold upon Puck
was violent also, more violent than he knew. Her whole body lay a
throbbing weight upon him, and he was not even aware of it.

"Go!" he reiterated, with eyes of leaping flame. "Go! or--" He left the
sentence uncompleted. It was even more terrible than his flow of words
had been. The whole man vibrated with a wrath that possessed him in a
fashion so colossal as to render him actually sublime. He mastered the
situation by the sheer, indomitable might of his fury. There was no
standing against him. It would have been as easy to stem a racing
torrent.

Vulcan, for all his insolence, realized the fact. The man's strength in
that moment was gigantic, practically limitless. There was no coping
with it. Still with the snarl upon his lips he turned away.

"You will pay for this, my wife," he said. "You will pay in full. When I
punish, I punish well."

He reached the door and opened it, still leering back at the limp,
girlish form in Merryon's arms.

"It will not be soon over," h