teen? Man to my
woman indeed! That surely is the last insult!"

"Your repartee is admirable, Jessie. I should say they do, though--all
that and more also when their hearts were set on such a girl as
yourself. For God's sake drop this shrewishness! Why should you be
so--difficult to me? Here am I with MY reputation, MY career, at your
feet. Look here, Jessie--on my honour, I will marry you--"

"God forbid," she said, so promptly that she never learnt he had a wife,
even then. It occurred to him then for the first time, in the flash of
her retort, that she did not know he was married.

"'Tis only a pre-nuptial settlement," he said, following that hint.

He paused.

"You must be sensible. The thing's your own doing. Come out on the beach
now the beach here is splendid, and the moon will soon be high."

"_I_ WON'T" she said, stamping her foot.

"Well, well--"

"Oh! leave me alone. Let me think--"

"Think," he said, "if you want to. It's your cry always. But you can't
save yourself by thinking, my dear girl. You can't save yourself in any
way now. If saving it is--this parsimony--"

"Oh, go--go."

"Very well. I will go. I will go and smoke a cigar. And think of you,
dear.... But do you think I should do all this if I did not care?"

"Go," she whispered, without glancing round. She continued to stare
out of the window. He stood looking at her for a moment, with a strange
light in his eyes. He made a step towards her. "I HAVE you,", he said.
"You are mine. Netted--caught. But mine." He would have gone up to her
and laid his hand upon her, but he did not dare to do that yet. "I have
you in my hand," he said, "in my power. Do you hear--POWER!"

She remained impassive. He stared at her for half a minute, and then,
with a superb gesture that was lost upon her, went to the door. Surely
the instinctive abasement of her sex before Strength was upon his side.
He told himself that his battle was won. She heard the handle move and
the catch click as the door closed behind him.

XXII.

And now without in the twilight behold Mr. Hoopdriver, his cheeks
hot, his eye bright! His brain is in a tumult. The nervous, obsequious
Hoopdriver, to whom I introduced you some days since, has undergone a
wonderful change. Ever since he lost that 'spoor' in Chichester, he has
been tormented by the most horrible visions of the shameful insults that
may be happening. The strangeness of new surroundings has been working
to strip off