only person concerned.

But the absolute and uncompromising silence with which his easy
suggestion was received was disquieting. He hastened to break it,
divining that the longer it lasted the less was it likely to end in his
favour.

"Come, I say!" he urged on a friendly note. "You can't refuse to do this
much for a comrade in a tight corner! I'd do the same for you and more.
And remember, it isn't my happiness alone that hangs in the balance!
We've got to think of--Stella!"

Monck moved at that, moved sharply, almost with violence. Yet, when he
spoke, his voice was still deliberate, cuttingly distinct. "Yes," he
said. "And her honour is worth about as much to you, apparently, as your
own! I am thinking of her--and of her only. And, so far as I can see,
there is only one thing to be done."

"Oh, indeed!" Dacre's air of half-humorous persuasion dissolved into
insolence. "And I am to do it, am I? Your humble servant to command!"

Monck stretched forth a sinewy arm and slowly closed his fist under the
other man's eyes. "You will do it--yes," he said. "I hold you--like
that."

Dacre flinched slightly in spite of himself. "What do you mean? You
would never be such a--such a cur--as to give me away?"

Monck made a sound that was too full of bitterness to be termed a laugh.
"You're such an infernal blackguard," he said, "that I don't care a damn