against the china as she wrung her hands over the tea
things, and portending disaster.

Leonie sat down on her bed with her eyes shining like stars.

The lid of her life's casket had opened wide, and from under a hideous
heap of fear, disgust, lost illusions, and despair, hope had sprung,
spreading her iridescent wings in the warmth of love.

She sat until the shadows crept about her, then got up from her bed
with a little laugh, and descended to give battle for her life and
freedom.

Think of every synonym connected with the word tumult and you will get
a vague idea of the storm which crashed about the girl's defenceless
head as she stood with her back to the door of the tiny sitting-room,
with a perfectly gorgeous diamond ring sparkling and flashing in front
of her upon a table.

"I cannot marry you, Sir Walter, I simply cannot do it," she was
saying, slowly and distinctly. "You must let me go. So please give
the ring to somebody else, there are heaps of girls ever--oh, ever so
much nicer than me!"

She smiled sweetly as she picked up the ring and held it out to the
man, who snatched it from her as he sprang to his feet, and hurled it
through the window.

Then he moved to the other side of the table and leant both clenched
fists upon it as he looked Leonie up and down.

"You needn't wear the ring, my girl," he said slowly, "but no one picks
Walter Hickle up one day and throws him down the next. You're going to
marry me this day month, you take that straight from me. Let's hear
why you've changed your mind so sudden; willing to marry last night,
unwilling to marry to-day.

"Come on, now, out with it!" he suddenly shouted, bringing his hand
with a crash on the table as Leonie hesitated, blushing divinely.

"Only--be-cause I--I don't love you, Sir Walter, and it's--it's _not_
right to marry without love!"

"Posh! There wasn't so much of this 'ere right to marry last night.
Fallen in love with that young feller-me-lad, I suppose. Where did you
meet him? What were you doing? How--how----"

Leonie turned the handle of the door, but shrank back as the man, with
a bound, flung himself at her and wrenched her hand free; and Susan
Hetth clashed her bracelets and bits as she put her hands tightly over
her face, in her fright forgetting the mixture of colours she heaped on
it daily in the hope of stemming the neap tide of old age.

"Get out, you there!" snarled the man, lashed to fury by the whip of
jealo