done has been for
your good always. Your father will testify to that. Go and ask
him if you don't believe me!"

"My father had nothing to do with this!" said Sylvia in tones of
withering scorn. "Whatever else he lacks, he has a sense of
honour. But you--you are a wicked woman, unprincipled, cruel,
venomous. It may be my father's duty to live with you, but--thank
heaven--it is not mine. You have come into my home and cursed it.
I will never sleep under the same roof with you again."

She turned with the words to leave the room, and found her father
and George Preston just coming out of the library on the other side
of the hall. Fearlessly she swung round and confronted them. The
utter freedom of her at that moment made her superb. The miracle
had happened. She had rent the net that entangled her to shreds.

Mrs. Ingleton was beginning to clamour in the room behind her. She
turned swiftly and shut and locked the door. Then she faced the
two men with magnificent courage.

"I have to tell you," she said, addressing them both impersonally,
"that my engagement to Guy Ranger is unbroken. I have just found
out that my step-mother has been suppressing his letters to me.
That, of course, alters everything. And--also of course--it makes
it impossible for me to stay here any longer. I am going to
him--at once."

Her eyes went rapidly from her father's face to Preston's. It was
he who came forward and answered her. The squire seemed struck
dumb.

"Egad!" he said. "I've never seen you look so rippin' in all my
life! That's how you look when you're angry, is it? Now I shall
know what to watch out for when we're married."

She answered him with a quiver of scorn. "We never shall be
married, Mr. Preston. You may put that out of your mind for ever.
I am going to Guy by the next boat."

"Not you!" laughed Preston. "You're in a paddy just now, my dear,
but when you've thought it over soberly you'll find there are a
good many little obstacles in the way of that. You haven't been
brought up to rough it for one. And Guy Ranger, as I think we
settled last night, has probably married half a dozen blacks
already. It's too great a risk, Cherry-ripe! And--if I know
you--you won't take it."

"You don't know me," said Sylvia. She turned, from him and went to
her father. "Have you nothing to say," she asked, "about this vile
and hateful plot? But I suppose you can't. She is your wife.
However much you desp