"Liar! liar! liar!" she shrieked.

She had risen, and stood pointing an accusatory finger at him. Then
suddenly the dramatic force of the situation seemed to fail, and she
burst out laughing. For some seconds it seemed as if her laughter was
getting beyond her control, but at last she checked it with a gurgle.

The complete success of the trap which she had laid for him almost
disappointed her. Few things are more disappointing than complete
success. She hated him, and yet for the sake of the one gleam of good
love that had flickered once in her essentially sordid heart, she had
nourished a vague hope that he would clear himself--that at all events he
would have the cleverness to see through her stratagem.

"Liar!" she repeated. "In this room last night--not twenty-four hours
ago--Mr. Wynderton told me all about it. He said that you told several
men in his presence that you did not love me, and that your death
reported in the papers was the best way of breaking off the engagement."

Seymour Michael's eyes never wavered. For once they were still, with
that solemn depth of gaze which tells of the curse laid on a smitten,
miserable race. It was strange that before honest men and women his
glance wavered ever--he could never meet honest eyes; but looking at Anna
Agar they were as steady as those of a true man.

"Wynderton," ho said, "the man whose promotion I stopped, by a report
against him for looting."

When Nature makes a fool in the guise of a woman she turns out a finished
work. Mrs. Agar's eyes actually lighted up. Seymour Michael saw; but he