d under the insult. And yet,
because to give vent to her rage were also to bare her heart to his
eyes, she had to restrain herself, and endure even this with a scarlet
cheek. She had thought to shame him by accepting the money he offered;
by accepting it in the barest form. The shame was hers; it did not seem
to touch him a whit. At last, 'You are mistaken,' she answered, in a
voice she strove to render steady. 'I shall not! And now, if there is
nothing more, sir--'

'There is,' he said. 'Are you sufficiently punished?'

She looked at him wildly--suddenly, irresistibly compelled to do so by a
new tone in his voice. 'Punished!' she stammered, almost inaudibly.
'For what?'

'Do you not know?'

'No,' she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.

'For this travesty,' he answered; and coolly, as he stood before her, he
twitched the sleeve of her shapeless gown, looking masterfully down at
her the while, so that her eyes fell before his. 'Did you think it kind
to me or fair to me,' he continued, almost sternly, 'to make that
difficult, Julia, which my honour required, and which you knew that my
honour required? Which, if I had not come to do, you would have despised
me in your heart, and presently with your lips? Did you think it fair
to widen the distance between us by this--this piece of play-acting?
Give me your hand.'

She obeyed, trembling, tongue-tied. He held it an instant, looked at it,
and dropped it almost contemptuously. 'It has not cleaned that step
before,' he said. 'Now put up your hair.'

She did so with shaking fingers, her cheeks pale, tears oozing from
under her lowered eyelashes. He devoured her with his gaze.

'Now go to your room,' he said. 'Take off that rag and come to me
properly dressed.'

'How?' she whispered.

'As my wife.'

'It is impossible,' she cried with a gesture of despair; 'It is
impossible.'

'Is that the answer you would have given me at Manton Corner?'

'Oh no, no!' she cried. 'But everything is changed.'

'Nothing is changed.'

'You said so,' she retorted feverishly. 'You said that it was changed!'

'And have you, too, told the whole truth?' he retorted. 'Go, silly
child! If you are determined to play Pamela to the end, at least you
shall play it in other guise than this. 'Tis impossible to touch you!
And yet, if you stand long and tempt me, I vow, sweet, I shall fall!'

To his astonishment she burst into hysterical laughter. 'I thought men
wooed--with promises!'