as well as
any others. "It seems so, doesn't it?"

"And you don't care whether I go to the devil or not?"

"What's the good of my caring when you seem determined to do it
anyhow?"

He allowed a good minute to pass before saying, "Well, if you don't
marry me some other woman will."

"Very likely; and if you make her a promise to reform I hope you'll
keep your word."

"She won't be likely to exact any such condition."

"Then you'll probably be happier with her than you could have been
with me."

Having opened up the way for him to make some protest to which she
could have remained obdurate, she waited for it to come. But nothing
did come. Had she turned, she would have seen that he had grown white,
that his hands were clenched and his lips compressed after a way he
had and that his wild, harum-scarum soul was worked up to an
extraordinary intensity; but she didn't turn. She was waiting for him
to pick up the ring, creep along behind her, and seize the hand
resting on the mantelpiece, according to the ritual she had mentally
foreordained. But without stooping or taking a step he spoke again.

"I picked up a book at the club the other day."

Not being interested, she made no response.

"It was the life of an English writing-guy."

Though wondering what he was working up to, she still held her peace.

"Gissing, the fellow's name was. Ever hear of him?"

The question being direct, she murmured: "Yes; of course. What of
it?"

"Ever hear how he got married?"

"Not that I remember."

"When something went wrong--I've forgotten what--he went out into the
street with a vow. It was a vow to marry the first woman he met who'd
marry him."

A shiver went through her. It was just such a foolhardy thing as
Rashleigh himself was likely to attempt. She was afraid. She was
afraid, and yet reangered just when her wrath was beginning to die
down.

"And he did it!" he cried, with a force in which it was impossible for
her not to catch a note of personal implication.

It was unlikely that he could be trying to trap her by any such cheap
melodramatic threat as this; and yet----

When several minutes had gone by in a silence which struck her soon as
awesome, she turned slowly round, only to find herself alone.

She ran into the hall, but there was no one there. He must have gone
downstairs. Leaning over the baluster, she called to him.

"Rash! Rash!"

But only Wildgoose, the manservant, answered from below. "Mr. Al