"No, I am not afraid, because I still have a reserve force; I still
hold the letters that I stole two days ago; and, even should you
murder me, I have left directions that will ensure your exposure."

A pause ensued.

"Have you nothing more to say?" he said, at last.

"Nothing."

"Supposing, Anne, that I were to tell you that I have been trying to
frighten you, and that if you were to go down on your knees before me
now, and beg my forgiveness, I would forgive you--no, not forgive you,
but let you off with easier terms--would you do it?"

"No, John, I would not. Once I went on my knees to a man, and I have
not forgotten the lesson he taught me. Do your worst."

"Then you understand my terms, and accept them?"

"Understand them! yes. I understand that you are a little-minded man,
and, like all little-minded men, cruel, and desirous of exacting the
uttermost farthing in the way of revenge, forgetting that you owe
everything to me. I do not wish to exculpate myself, mind you. Looking
at the case from your point of view, and in your own petty way, I can
almost sympathize with you. But as for accepting your terms--do you
know me so little as to think that I could do so? Have you not learnt
that I may break, but shall never bend? And, if I chose now to face
the matter out, I should beat you, even now when you hold all the
cards in your hand; but I am weary of it all, especially weary of you
and your little ways, and I do not choose. You will injure me enough
to make the great success I planned for us both impossible, and I am
tired of everything except the success which crowns a struggle. Well,
I have ways of escape you know nothing of. Do your worst; I am not
afraid of you;" and she leaned back easily in her chair, and looked at
him with wearied and indifferent eyes.

Little Sir John ground his teeth, and twisted his pippen-like face
into a scowl that looked absurdly out of place on anything so jovial.

"Curse you," he said, "even now you dare to defy me. Do you know, you
woman fiend, that at this moment I almost think I love you?"

"Of course I know it. If you did not love me, you would not take all
this trouble to try to crush me. But this conversation is very long;
shall we put an end to it?"

Sir John sat still a moment, thinking, and gazing at the splendid
Sphinx-browed creature before him with a mixture of hatred and
respect. Then he rose, and spoke.

"Anne, you are a wonderful woman! I cannot do it, I c