Pluma Hurlhurst never quailed beneath the cold, mocking glance bent
upon her.

There was no hope for her; disgrace and ruin stared her in the face;
she would defy even Fate itself to the bitter end with a heroism
worthy of a better cause. In that hour and that mood she was capable
of anything.

She leaned against a tall palm-tree, looking at him with a strange
expression on her face, as she made answer, slowly:

"You may depend upon it, I shall never marry you, Lester Stanwick. If
I do not marry Rex I shall go unmarried to the grave. Ah, no!" she
cried desperately; "Heaven will have more mercy, more pity than to
take him from me."

"What mercy or pity did you feel in thrusting poor little Daisy Brooks
from his path?" asked Stanwick, sarcastically. "Your love has led you
through dangerous paths. I should call it certainly a most perilous
love."

She recoiled from him with a low cry, those words again still ringing
in her ears, "A perilous love."

She laughed with a laugh that made even Stanwick's blood run cold--a
horrible laugh.

"I do not grieve that she is dead," she said. "You ought to understand
by this time I shall allow nothing to come between Rex and me."

"You forget the fine notions of honor your handsome lover entertains;
it may not have occurred to you that he might object at the eleventh
hour."

"He will not," she cried, fiercely, her bosom rising and falling
convulsively under its covering of filmy lace and the diamond brooch
which clasped it. "You do not know the indomitable will of a desperate
woman," she gasped. "I will see him myself and confess all to him, if
you attempt to reveal the contents of those letters. He will marry me
and take me abroad at once. If I have Rex's love, what matters it what
the whole world knows or says?"

She spoke rapidly, vehemently, with flushed face and glowing eyes; and
even in her terrible anger Stanwick could not help but notice how
gloriously beautiful she was in her tragic emotion.

"I have asked you to choose between us," he said, calmly, "and you
have chosen Rex regardless of all the promises of the past. The
consequences rest upon your own head."

"So be it," she answered, haughtily.

With a low bow Stanwick turned and left her.

"_Au revoir_, my dear Pluma," he said, turning again toward her on the
threshold. "Not farewell--I shall not give up hope of winning the
heiress of Whitestone Hall."

For several moments she stood quite still among the