gician's, bungalow, and listened to the water running through the
reeds. She thought it sounded louder than in the morning--- more
insistent, less mirthful. She shivered a little as she stood there. She
felt lonely; her uncle was away for a couple of days, and Ronnie was in
his room. She was bracing herself to go and rouse him to dress for mess.
Slowly, at last, she turned to go. But at the same instant a voice
called to her from below, and she stopped short.

"Ah, don't run away!" it said. "I've come on purpose to see you--on a
matter of importance."

Reluctantly Hope waited. She knew the voice well, and it made her quiver
in every nerve with the instinct of flight. Yet she summoned all her
resolution and stood still, while Hyde calmly mounted the veranda steps
and approached her. He was in riding-dress, and he carried a crop,
walking with all the swaggering insolence that she loathed.

"There's something I want to say to you," he said. "I can come in, I
suppose? It won't take me long."

He took her permission for granted, and turned into the drawing-room.
Hope followed him in silence. She could not pretend to this man that his
presence was a pleasure to her. She hated him, and deep in her heart she
feared him as she feared no one else in the world.

He looked at her with eyes of cynical criticism by the light of the
shaded lamp. She felt that there was something worse than insolence
about him that night--something of cruelty, of brutality even, from
which she was powerless to escape.

"Come!" he said, as she did not speak. "Doesn't it occur to you that I
have been a particularly good friend to you to-day?"

Hope faced him steadily. Twice before she had evaded this man, but she
knew that to-night evasion was out of the question. She must confront
him without panic, and alone.

"I think you must tell me what you mean," she said, her voice very low.

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and then laughed at her--his
abominable, mocking laugh.

"I have noticed before," he said, "that when a woman finds herself in a
tight corner, she invariably tries to divert attention by asking
unnecessary questions. It's a harmless little stratagem that may serve
her turn. But in this case, let me assure you, it is sheer waste of
time. I hold you--and your brother, also--in the hollow of my hand. And
you know it."

He spoke slowly, with a confidence from which there was no escape. His
eyes still closely watched her face.