.

"Oh, I know I'm wrong, I know you're hating me, despising me for telling
you all this, but it's too much for me. I can't bear it alone any
longer. It's driving me mad, Toni, mad, do you hear? At night I dream of
you--sometimes I dream that you've been kind to me, that I've kissed
you--kissed your little mouth, held you in my arms ... and then I wake
and know you're another man's wife, and it makes the blood rush to my
head and I see red, Toni, red...."

Something in his excitement warned the girl that she must soothe him.

"Hush, Leonard." In that moment she reverted to the days of their early
friendship. "Don't speak so wildly. You--you frighten me."

He passed his hand over his brow, and when he spoke his voice was a
shade quieter.

"I wouldn't frighten you for the world, Toni, you know that. I love you
far too well ... oh, Toni, is it quite hopeless! Isn't there a glimmer
of pity in your heart for me? Won't you ever give me a thought...."

"Leonard, how can I?" She spoke in a low voice, all Eva's horrid
suggestions rushing over her in a flood. "I'm married; I can't ever be
anything to you now."

"Oh, I know you're married." He caught his breath in a gasp. "But
still--oh, Toni, you wouldn't come away with me, would you? I've got
some money now. I'd be able to give you things, and I'd work for you
till I died...."

At another moment Toni would have found occasion to wonder at his
temerity in making the suggestion. She did not know how his imagination,
fired by Eva's insinuations, played about the figure of Owen Rose's wife
as the unloved victim of a man's callousness; and although she could see
that Leonard Dowson was in deadly earnest, she had no conception of the
sincerity of his belief that she had been wronged, trapped into marriage
by a man who cared little for her, and neglected her openly.

Such was the manner in which the situation had been presented to Dowson
by Eva Herrick; and in his genuine acceptance of her story lay Dowson's
best excuse for his wild plan.

"I ... I couldn't come away with you, Leonard." In spite of her desire
to set Owen free, Toni's whole soul revolted at the idea of such
treachery. "I'm married, you know, and I couldn't leave my husband."

"Why not?" in his despair the young man pressed still nearer, and again
Jock uttered a warning growl. "I know you are married, but still--you're
not happy--your husband isn't, either, by what I hear. You'd be wronging
nobody--you've no