ot just then
himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that
faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his
lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled
behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively.
She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright
elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine
aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile;
and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend
him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too
keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he
controlled the vice that held her fast--her affection for her brother.
And because of that she hated him the more. "You see, Mistress
Westmacott," said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point
of sadness, "that there is nothing else." She stood, her eyes following
the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her
courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke
again, still without turning. "If that was not enough to suit your
ends"--and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there
glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery--"I marvel you should
have come to Zoyland--to compromise yourself to so little purpose."

She raised a startled face. "Com... compromise myself?" she echoed.
"Oh!" It was a cry of indignation.

"What else?" quoth he, and turned abruptly to confront her.

"Mistress Horton was.., was with me," she panted, her voice quivering as
on the brink of tears.

"'Tis unfortunate you should have separated," he condoled.

"But.., but, Mr. Wilding, I... I trusted to your honour. I accounted you
a gentleman. Surely... surely, sir, you will not let it be known that...
I came to you? You will keep my secret?"

"Secret!" said he, his eyebrows raised. "'Tis already the talk of the
servants' hall. By to-morrow 'twill be the gossip of Bridgwater."

Air failed her Her blue eyes fixed him in horror out of her stricken
face. Not a word had she wherewith to answer him.

The sight of her, thus, affected him oddly. His passion for her surged
up, aroused by pity for her plight, and awakened in him a sense of his
brutality. A faint flush stirred in his cheeks. He stepped quickly to
her, and caught her hand. She let it lie, cold and inert, within his
nerv