hurt me more--more than you
need!"

He was silent again, grimly, interminably silent, it seemed to her. And
all the while she felt him doing battle with her, beating down her
resistance, mastering her, compelling her.

"Hope!" he said at length.

She looked up at him. Her knees were shaking under her. Her heart was
beginning to whisper that her strength was nearly spent; that she would
not be able to resist much longer.

"Tell me," he said very quietly, "this one thing only! What is the hold
that Hyde has over you?"

She shook her head.

"That is the one thing--"

"It is the one thing that I must know," he said sternly.

She was white to the lips.

"I can't answer you," she said.

"You must answer me!" He turned her quivering face up to his own. "Do
you hear me, Hope?" he said. "I insist upon your answering me."

He still spoke quietly, but she was suddenly aware that he was putting
forth his whole strength. It came upon her like a physical, crushing
weight. It overwhelmed her. She hid her face with an anguished cry. He
had conquered her.

In another moment she would have yielded. Her opposition was dead. But
abruptly, unexpectedly, there came an interruption. Ronnie, very pale,
and looking desperate, came between them.

"Look here, sir," he said, "you--you are going too far. I can't have my
sister coerced in this fashion. If she prefers to keep this matter to
herself, she must do so. You can't force her to speak."

Baring released Hope and turned upon him almost violently, but, seeing
the unusual, if precarious, air of resolution with which Ronnie
confronted him, he checked himself. He walked to the end of the room and
back before he spoke. His features were set like a mask when he
returned.

"You may be right," he said, "though I think it would have been better
for everyone if you had not interfered. Hope, I am going. If you cannot
bring yourself to tell me the whole truth without reservation, there can
be nothing further between us. I fear that, after all, I spoke too soon.
I can enter upon no compact that is not based upon absolute
confidence."

He spoke coldly, decidedly, without a trace of feeling; and, having
spoken, he went deliberately to the window. There he stood for a few
seconds with his back turned upon the room; then, as the silence
remained unbroken, he quietly lifted the catch and let himself out.

In the room he left not a word was spoken for many tragic minutes.

XIII