And Hope felt again that wild
terror, which only he had ever inspired in her, knocking at her heart.

She did not ask him a second time what he meant. He had made her realize
the utter futility of prevarication. Instead, she forced herself to
meet his look boldly, and grapple with him with all her desperate
courage.

"My brother owed you a debt of honour," she said; "and it has been paid.
What more do you want?"

A glitter of admiration shone for a moment through his cynicism. This
was better than meek surrender. A woman who fought was worth conquering.

"You are not going to acknowledge, then," he said, "that you--you
personally--are in any way indebted to me?"

"Certainly not!" The girl's eyes did not flinch before his. Save that
she was trembling, he would scarcely have detected her fear. "You have
done nothing for me," she said. "You only served your own purpose."

"Oh, indeed!" said Hyde softly. "So that is how you look at it, is it?"

He moved, and went close to her. Still she did not shrink. She was
fighting desperately--desperately--a losing battle.

"Well," he said, after a moment, in which she withstood him silently
with all her strength, "in one sense that is true. I did serve my own
purpose. But have you, I wonder, any idea what that purpose of mine
was?"

He waited, but she did not answer him. She was nearly at the end of her
strength. Hyde did not offer to touch her. He only smiled a little at
the rising panic in her white face.

"Do you know what I am going to do now?" he said. "I am going to
mess--it's a guest night--and they will drink my health as the winner of
the Ghantala Cup. And then I shall propose someone else's health. Can
you guess whose?"

She shrank then, shrank perceptibly, painfully, as the victim must
shrink, despite all his resolution, from the hot iron of the torturer.

Hyde stood for a second longer, watching her. Then he turned. There was
fiendish triumph in his eyes.

"Good-bye!" he said.

She caught her breath sharply, spasmodically, as one who suppresses a
cry of pain. And then, before he reached the window, she spoke:

"Please wait!"

He turned instantly, and came back to her.

"Come!" he said. "You are going to be reasonable after all."

"What is it that you want?" Her desperation sounded in her voice. She
looked at him with eyes of wild appeal. Her defiance was all gone. The
smile went out of Hyde's face, and suddenly she saw the primitive savage
in posses