fire within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She
felt his grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for
the last time.

"Reflect," he said, "reflect before it is too late. Your silence
will not serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall
take your silence as a confession. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Clara Burnham! I am not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham! I
insist on the truth. Are you false to me?"

She resented that searching question with a woman's keen sense of
the insult that is implied in doubting her to her face.

"Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in
that way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or
pledge--"

He passionately interrupted her before she could say more.

"You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your
looks own it! You have engaged yourself to another man!"

"If I _have_ engaged myself, what right have you to complain of
it?" she answered firmly. "What right have you to control my
actions--?"

The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her