Minutes passed. Dacre seemed unable to lift his eyes from the page. But
it fluttered in his hold, though the night was still, as if a strong
wind were blowing.

Suddenly he moved, as one who violently breaks free from some fettering
spell. He uttered a bitter oath and tore the sheet of paper passionately
to fragments. He flung them to the ground and trampled them underfoot.

"Ten million curses on her!" he raved. "She has been the bane of my
life!"

Monck's eyes came out of the distance and surveyed him, coldly curious.
"I thought so," he said, and in his voice was an odd inflection as of
one who checks a laugh at an ill-timed jest.

Dacre stamped again like an infuriated bull. "If I had her here--I'd
strangle her!" he swore. "That brother of yours is an artist. He has
sketched her to the life--the she-devil!" His voice cracked and broke.
He was breathing like a man in torture. He swayed as he stood.

And still Monck remained passive, grim and cold and unyielding. "How
long is it since you married her?" he questioned at last.

"I tell you I never married her!" Desperately Dacre sought to recover
lost ground, but he had slipped too far.

"You told me that lie before," Monck observed in his even judicial
tones. "Is it--worth while?"

Dacre glared at him, but his glare was that of the hunted animal trapped