ent a swirl of hot passion through him. He flung
aside the cloak and strode towards her.

But she was gone on the instant, gone with a tinkle of maddening
laughter. He blundered into the darkness of an empty room. But he was
not the man to suffer defeat tamely. Momentarily baffled, he paused to
light a lamp; then went from room to room of the little bungalow,
locking each door that she might not elude him a second time. His blood
was on fire, and he meant to find her.

In the end he came upon her wholly unexpectedly, standing on the veranda
amongst the twining roses. She seemed to be awaiting him, though she
made no movement towards him as he approached.

"Good-night, Billikins," she said, her voice very small and humble.

He came to her without haste, realizing that she had given the game
into his hands. She did not shrink from him, but she raised an appealing
face. And oddly the man's heart smote him. She looked so pathetically
small and childish standing there.

But the blood was still running fiercely in his veins, and that
momentary twinge did not cool him. Child she might be, but she had
played with fire, and she alone was responsible for the conflagration
that she had started.

He drew near to her; he took her, unresisting, into his arms.

She cowered down, hiding her face away from him. "Don't, Billikins!
Please--please, Billikins!" she begged, incoherently. "You promised--you
promised--"

"What did I promise?" he said.

"That you wouldn't--wouldn't"--she spoke breathlessly, for his hold was
tightening upon her--"gobble me up," she ended, with a painful little
laugh.

"I see." Merryon's voice was deep and low. "And you meantime are at
liberty to play any fool game you like with me. Is that it?"

She was quivering from head to foot. She did not lift her face. "It
wasn't--a fool game," she protested. "I did it because--because--you
were so horrid this morning, so--so cold-blooded. And I--and I--wanted
to see if--I could make you care."

"Make me care!" Merryon said the words over oddly to himself; and then,
still fast holding her, he began to feel for the face that was so
strenuously hidden from him.

She resisted him desperately. "Let me go!" she begged, piteously. "I'll
be so good, Billikins. I'll go to the Hills. I'll do anything you like.
Only let me go now! Billikins!"

She cried out sharply, for he had overcome her resistance by quiet
force, had turned her white face up to his own.

"I am