y, attentively, for a few seconds, and finally set
Carey free.

"You may thank that," he said more quietly, "for getting you out of the
hottest corner you were ever in. I didn't notice it yesterday, though I
remember now that you were wounded. So you parted with half your hand to
drag me out of that hell, did you? It was a rank, bad investment on your
part."

He flung away abruptly, and helped himself to some brandy. A
considerable pause ensued before he spoke again.

"Egad!" he said then, with a harsh laugh, "it's a deuced ingenious lie,
this of yours. I suppose you and that imp of mischief, Gwen, hatched it
up between you? I saw she had got her thinking-cap on yesterday. I am
not considered good enough for her lady mother. But, mark you, I'm going
to have her for all that! It isn't good for man to live alone, and I
have taken a fancy to Evelyn Emberdale."

"You don't believe me?" Carey asked.

Somehow, though he had been prepared for bluster and even violence, he
had not expected incredulity.

Coningsby filled and emptied his glass a second time before he answered.

"No," he said then, with sudden savagery: "I don't believe you! You had
better get out of my house at once, or--I warn you--I may break every
bone in your blackguardly body yet!" He turned on Carey, leaping madness
in his eyes.

But Carey stood like a rock. "You know the truth," he said quietly.

Coningsby broke into another wild laugh, and pointed up at the picture
above his head.

"I shall know it," he declared, "when the sea gives up its dead. Till
that day I am free to console myself in my own way, and no one shall
stop me."

"You are not free," Carey said. Very steadily he faced the man, very
distinctly he spoke. "And, however you console yourself, it will not be
with my cousin Lady Emberdale."

Coningsby turned back to the table to fill his glass again. He spilt the
spirit over the cloth as he did it.

"Man alive," he gibed, "do you think she will believe you if I don't?"

It was the weak point of his position, and Carey realised it. It was
more than probable that Lady Emberdale would take Coningsby's view of
the matter. If the man really attracted her it was almost a foregone
conclusion. He knew Gwen's mother well--her inconsequent whims, her
obstinacy.

Yet, even in face of this check, he stood his ground.

"I may find some means of proving what I have told you," he said, with
unswerving resolution.

Coningsby drained his gla