e Kate's eyes, she whose high sense of honour never
brooked the slightest act that savoured of mere expediency, would be
a far more ample revenge than any which should follow a personal
rencontre.

"She shall see him in his true colours," muttered he to himself, as
he went along; "she shall know something of the man to whom she would
pledge honour and affection; and then, when his treachery is open as the
noon-day, and the blackness of his heart revealed, she shall be free to
take him, unscathed and uninjured. I'll never touch a hair of his head."

Mark had a certain pride in thus conducting himself on this occasion, to
show that he possessed other qualities than those of rash and impetuous
courage--that he could reason calmly and act deliberately, was now the
great object he had at heart. Nor was the least motive that prompted
him the desire he felt to exhibit himself to Kate in circumstances more
favourable than any mere outbreak of indignant rage would display him.

The more he meditated on these things, the more firm and resolute were
his determinations not to suffer Hemsworth to escape his difficulties,
by converting the demand for explanation into an immediate cause of
quarrel. Such a tactique he thought it most probable Hemsworth would at
once adopt, as the readiest expedient in his power.

"No," said Mark to himself, "he shall find that he has mistaken me; my
patience and endurance will stand the proof; he must and shall avow his
own baseness, and then, if he wish for fighting----"

The clenched lip and flashing eye the words were accompanied by, plainly
confessed that, if Mark had adopted a more pacific line of conduct, it
certainly was not in obedience to any temptations of his will.

Immersed in his reveries, he found himself in front of "the Lodge"
before he was aware of it; and, although his thoughts were of a nature
that left him little room for other considerations, he could not help
standing in surprise and admiration at the changes effected in his
absence. The neat but unpretending cottage had now been converted into a
building of Elizabethean style; the front extended along the lake side,
to which it descended in two terraced gardens. The ample windows, thrown
open to the ground, displayed a suite of apartments furnished with all
that taste and luxury could suggest--the walls ornamented by pictures,
and the panels of both doors and window-shutters formed of plate glass,
reflecting the mountain sce