in her face vanished, and even the allurement which often lasts
when the sweetness is gone, disappeared in the energy which now
took possession of her whole threatening and inflexible
personality.

"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer
of Agatha Webb."

She had seen the death of love in his eyes.




VIII

"A DEVIL THAT UNDERSTANDS MEN"


Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he
himself, perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments
of stupefaction following the astounding alternative which had
been given him, he broke out with the last sentence she probably
expected to hear:

"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your
wishes you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"

She met him on his own ground.

"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret