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"You--spare me!" she retorted, with a short contemptuous laugh.

"Yes," he said, wetting his lips, "I have tried to spare you! I tried argument, entreaty, all to no purpose! Now--now you compel me to use force!"

She glanced at the door, though she seemed to know instinctively that he did not mean physical force.

"I would have saved you without this last step," he said, slowly, almost inaudibly. "I call upon you to remember this in the after-time. That not until you had repulsed all my efforts to turn you from your purpose--not until you had lashed me with your scorn and contempt, did I take up this last weapon. If in using it--though I use it as mercifully as I can--it turns and wounds you, bear this in mind, that not until the last did I direct it against you!"

Stella put her hand to her lips; they were trembling with excitement.

"I will not hear another word," she said. "I care as little for your threat--this is a threat----"

"It is a threat," he said, with deadly calmness.

"As I do for your entreaties. You cannot harm me."

"No," he said; "but I can harm those you love."

She smiled, and moved to the door.

"Stay," he said. "For their sakes, remain and hear me to the end."

She paused.

"You speak of shame," he said, "and fear it as naught. You do not know what it means, and--and--I forget the fearful words that stained your lips. But there are others, those you love, for whom shame means death--worse than death."

She looked at him with a smile of contemptuous disbelief. She did not believe one word of the vague threat, not one word.

"Believe me," he said, "there hangs above the heads of those you love a shame as deadly and awful as that sword which hung above the head of Damocles. It hangs by a single thread which I, and I alone, can sever. Say but the word and I can cast aside that shame. Turn from me to him--to him--and I cut the thread and the sword falls!"

Stella laughed scornfully.

"You have mistaken your vocation," she said. "You were intended for the stage, Mr. Adelstone. I regret that I have no further time to waste upon your efforts. Permit me to go."

"Go, then," he said, "and the misery of those dear to you be upon your hands, for you will have dealt it, not I! Go! But mark me, before you have reached the man who has ensnared you that shame will have fallen; a shame so bitter that it will yawn like a gulf between you and him; a gulf which no time can ever bridge over."

"It--it is a lie!" she breathed, her eyes fixed upon his white face, but she paused and did not go.

He inclined his head.

"No," he said, "it is true, an awful, shameful truth. You will wait and listen?"

She looked at him for a moment in silence.

"I will wait five minutes--just five minutes," she said, and she pointed to the clock. "And I warn you--it is I who warn you now--that by no word will I attempt to screen you from the punishment which will meet this lie."

"I am content," he said, and there was something in the cold tone of assured triumph that struck to her heart.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Five minutes!" said Stella, warningly; and she turned her face from him, and kept her eyes fixed on the clock.

"It will suffice," said Jasper. "I have to ask you to bear with me while I tell you a short history. I will mention no names--you yourself will be able to supply them. All I have to ask of you further is that you will hear me to the end. The history is of father and son."

Stella did not move; she thought that he referred to the earl and Leycester. She had determined to listen calmly until the five minutes were expired, and then to go--to go without a word.

"The father was an eminent painter"--Stella started slightly, but kept her eyes fixed on the clock--"a man who was highly gifted, of a rare and noble mind, and possessed of undeniable genius. Even as a young man his gifts were meeting with acknowledgment. He married a woman above him in station, beautiful, and fashionable, but altogether unworthy of him. As might have been expected, the marriage turned out ill. The wife, having nothing in common with her high-souled husband, plunged into the world, and was swallowed up in its vortex. I do not wish to speak of her further; she brought him shame."

Stella paled to the lips.

"Shame so deep that he cast aside his ambition and left the world. Casting away his old life, and separating himself entirely from it--separating himself from the child which the woman who had betrayed him had born to him--he settled in a remote country village, forgotten and effaced. The son was brought up by guardians appointed by the father, who could never bring himself to see him. This boy went to school, to college, was launched, so to speak, on the world without a father's care. The evil results which usually follow such a starting followed here. The boy, left to himself, or at best to the hired guardianship of a tutor, plunged into life. He was a handsome, high-spirited boy, and found, as is usual, ready companionship. Folly--I will not say vice--worked its usual charm; the boy, alone and uncared for, was led astray. In an unthinking moment he committed a crime----"

Stella, white and breathless, turned upon him.

"It is false!" she breathed.

He looked at her steadily.

"Committed a crime. It was done unthinkingly, on the spur of the moment; but it was done irrevocably. The punishment for the crime was a heavy one--he was doomed to spend the best part of his life as a convict----"

Stella moaned and put up her hand to her eyes.

"It is not true."

"Doomed to a felon's expiation. Think of it. A handsome, high-born, high-spirited, perhaps gifted lad, doomed to a felon's, a convict's fate! Can you not picture him, working in chains, clad in yellow, branded with shame----"

Stella leaned against the door, and hid her face.

"It is false--false!" she moaned; but she felt that it was true.

"From that doom--one--one whom you have lashed with your scorn--stepped forward to save him."

"You?"

"I," he said--"even I!"

She turned to him slightly.

"You did this?"

He inclined his head.

"I did it," he repeated. "But for me he would be, at this moment, working out his sentence, the just sentence of the outraged law."

Stella was silent, regarding him with eyes distended with horror.

"And he--he knew it?" she murmured, brokenly.

"No," he said. "He did not know it; he does not know it even now."

Stella breathed a sigh, then shuddered as she remembered how the boy Frank had insulted and scorned this silent, inflexible man, who had saved him from a felon's fate.

"He did not know it!" she said. "Forgive him!"

He smiled a strange smile.

"The lad is nothing to me," he said. "I have nothing to forgive. One does not feel angered at the attack of a gnat; one brushes the insect off, or lets it remain as the case may be. This lad is nothing to me. So far as he is concerned I might have allowed him to take his punishment. I saved him, not for his sake, but for another's."

Stella leaned against the door. She was beginning to feel the meshes of the net that was drawing closer and closer around her.

"For another," he continued, "I saved him for your sake."

She moistened her parched lips and raised her eyes.

"I--I am very grateful," she murmured.

His face flushed slightly.

"I did not seek your gratitude; I did not desire that you should even know that I had done this thing. Neither he nor you would ever have known it, but--but for this that has happened. It would have gone down with me into my grave--a secret. It would have done so, although you had refused me your love, although you should have given your heart to another. If"--and he paused--"if that other had been a man worthy of you." Stella's face flushed, and her eyes flashed, but she remembered all that he had done, and averted her gaze from him. "If that other had been one likely to have insured your happiness, I would have gone my way and remained silent; but it is not so. This man, this Lord Leycester, is one who will effect your ruin, one from whom I must--I will--save you. It is he who rendered this disclosure necessary."

He was silent, and Stella stood, her eyes bent on the ground. Even yet she did not realize the power he held over her--over those she loved.

"I am very grateful," she said at last. "I am fully sensible of all that you have done for us, and I am sorry that--that I should have spoken as I did, though"--and she raised her eyes with a sudden frank wistfulness--"I was much provoked."

"What was I to do?" he asked. She shook her head. "Could I stand idle and see you drift to destruction?"

"I shall not go to destruction," she said, with a troubled look. "You do not know Lord Leycester--you do not know--but we will not speak of that," she broke off, suddenly. "I will go now, please. I am very grateful, and--and--I hope you will forgive all that has passed!"

He looked at her.

"I will forgive all--_all_," he emphasized, "if you will turn back; if you will go back to your home, and promise that this thing which he has asked you to do shall not come to pass."

She turned upon him.

"You have no right----" then she stopped, smitten with a sudden fear by the expression of his face. "I cannot do that," she said, in a constrained voice.

He closed his hands tightly together.

"Do not force me," he said. "You will not force me to compel you?"

She looked at him tremblingly.

"Force!"

"Yes, force! You speak of gratitude; but I do not rely on that. If you were really grateful to me you would go back; but you are not. I cannot trust to gratitude." Then he came closer to her, and his voice dropped.

"Stella, I have sworn that this shall not be--that he shall not have you! I cannot break my oath. Do you not understand?"

She shook her head.

"No! I know that you cannot prevent me."

"I can," he said. "You do not understand. I saved the boy, but I can destroy him."

She shrank back.

"With a word!" he said, almost fiercely, his lips trembling. "One word, and he is destroyed. You doubt? See!" And he drew a paper from his pocket-book. "The crime he committed was forgery--forgery! Here is the proof!"

She shrank back still further, and held up her hands as if to shut the paper from her sight.

"Do not deceive yourself," he said, in his intense voice; "his safety lies in my hands--I hold the sword. It is for you to say whether I shall let it fall."

"Spare him!" she breathed, panting--"spare me!"

"I will spare him--I will save both him and you. Stella, say but the word; say to me here, now, 'Jasper, I will marry you,' and he is safe!"

With a low cry she sank against the door, and looked at him.

"I will not!" she panted, like some wild animal driven to bay.

"I will not."

His face darkened.

"You hate me so much?"

She was silent, regarding him with the same fearful, hunted look.

"You hate me!" he said, between his teeth. "But even that shall not prevent me from having my way. You will learn to hate me less--in time to love me."

She shuddered, and he saw the shudder, and it seemed to lash him into madness.

"I say you shall! Such love as mine cannot exist in vain, cannot be repelled; it must, it must win love in return. I will chance it. When you are my wife--do not shrink, mine you must and shall be!--you will grow to a knowledge of the strength of my devotion, and admit that I was justified----"

"No, never!" she panted.

He drew back, and let his hand fall on the back of the chair.

"Is that answer final?" he said hoarsely.

"Never!" she reiterated.

"Remember!" he said. "In that word you pronounce the doom of this lad; by that word you let fall the sword, you darken the few remaining years of an old man's life with shame!"

White and breathless she sank on to the floor and so knelt--absolutely knelt--to him, with outstretched hands and imploring eyes.

He looked at her, his heart beating, his lips quivering, and his hand moved toward the bell.

"If I ring this it is to send for a constable. If I ring this, it is to give this lad into custody on a charge of forgery. It is impossible for him to escape, the evidence is complete and damning."

His hand touched the bell, had almost pressed it, when Stella uttered a word.

"Stay!" she said, and so hoarse, so unnatural was the sound of her voice, that it went to his heart like a stab.

Slowly, with the movement of a person numbed and almost unconscious, she rose and came toward him.

Her face was white, white to the lip, her eyes fixed not on him, but beyond him; she had every appearance of one moving in a dream.

"Stay?" she said. "Do not ring."

His hand fell from the bell, and he stood regarding her with eager, watchful eyes.

"You--you consent?" he asked hoarsely.

Without moving her eyes, she seemed to look at him.

"Tell me," she said, in slow, mechanical tones, "tell me all--all that you wish me to do, all that I must do to save them."

Her agony touched him, but he remained inflexible, immovable.

"It is soon told," he said. "Say to me, 'Jasper, I will be your wife!' and I am content. In return, I promise that on the day, the hour in which you become my wife, I will give you this paper; upon it the boy's fate depends. Once this is destroyed he is safe--absolutely."

She held out her hand mechanically.

"Let me look at it."

He glanced at her, scarcely suspiciously but hesitatingly, for a moment, then placed the paper in her hands.

She took it, shuddering faintly.

"Show me!"

He put his finger on the forged name. Stella's eyes dwelt upon it with horror for a moment, then she held out the paper to him.

"He--he wrote that?"

"He wrote it," he answered. "It is sufficient to send him----"

She put up her hand to stop him.

"And--and to earn the paper I must--marry you?"

He was silent, but he made a gesture of assent.

She turned her head away for a moment, then she looked him full in the eyes, a strange, awful look.

"I will do it," she said, every word falling like ice from her white lips.

A crimson flush stained his face.

"Stella! My Stella!" he cried.

She put up her hand; she did not shrink back, but simply put up her hand, and it was he who shrank.

"Do not touch me," she said, calmly, "or--or I will not answer for myself."

He wiped the cold beads from his brow.

"I--I am content!" he said. "I have your promise. I know you too well to dream that you would break it. I am content. In time--well, I will say no more."

Then he went to the table and pressed the bell.

She looked up at him with a dull, numbed expression of inquiry which he understood and answered.

"You will see. I have thought of everything. I foresaw that you would yield and have planned everything."

The door opened as he spoke, and Scrivell came in followed by Frank, who hurled Scrivell out of the way and sprang before Jasper, inarticulate with rage.

But before he could find breath for words, his eyes fell upon Stella's face, and a change came over him.

"What does this mean?" he stammered. "What do you mean, Mr. Adelstone, by this outrage? Do you know that I have been kept a prisoner----"

Jasper interrupted him calmly, quietly, with an exasperating smile.

"You are a prisoner no longer, my dear Frank!"

"How dare you!" exclaimed the enraged boy, and he raised his cane.

It would have fallen across Jasper's face, for he made no attempt to ward it, but Stella sprang between them, and it fell on her shoulder.

"Frank," she moaned rather than cried, "you--you must not."

"Stella," he exclaimed, "stand away from him. I think I shall kill him."

She laid her hand upon his arm and looked up into his face with, ah! what an anguish of sorrowful pity and love.

"Frank," she breathed, pressing her hand to her bosom, "listen to me. He--Mr. Adelstone was--was right. He has done all for--for the best. You--you will beg his pardon."

He stared at her as if he thought that she had taken leave of her senses.

"What! What do you say!" he cried, below his breath. "Are you mad, Stella?"

She put her hand to her brow with a strange, weird smile.

"I wish--I almost think I am. No, Frank, not another word. You must not ask why. I cannot tell you. Only this, that--that Mr. Adelstone has explained, and that--that"--her voice faltered--"we must go back."

"Go back? Not go to Leycester?" he demanded, incredulous and astonished. "Do you know what you are saying?"

She smiled, a smile more bitter than tears.

"Yes, I know. Bear with me, Frank."

"Bear with you? What does she mean? Do you mean to say that you have allowed yourself to be persuaded by this--this hound----?"

"Frank! Frank!"

"Do not stop him," came the quiet, overstrained voice of 'the hound.'

"This hound, I said," repeated the boy, bitterly. "Has he persuaded you to break faith with Leycester? It is impossible. You would not, _could_ not, be so--so bad."

Stella looked at him, and the tears sprang to her eyes.

"Have pity, and--and--send him away," she said, without turning to Jasper.

He went up to Frank, who drew back as he approached, as if he were something loathsome.

"You are making your cousin unhappy by this conduct," he said. "It is as she says. She has changed her mind."

"It is a lie," retorted Frank, fiercely. "You have frightened her and tortured her into this. But you shall not succeed. It is easy for you to frighten a woman, as easily as it is to entrap her; but you will sing a different tune before a man. Stella, come with me. You must, you _shall_ come. We will go to Lord Leycester."

"It is unnecessary," cried Jasper, quietly. "His lordship will be here in a few minutes."

Stella started.

"No, no," she said, and moved to the door. Frank, staring at Jasper, caught and held her.

"Is that a lie, too?" he demanded. "If not--if it be true--then we will wait. We shall see how much longer you will be able to crow, Mr. Adelstone!"

"Let us go, Frank," implored Stella. "You will let me go now?" And she turned to Jasper.

Frank was almost driven to madness by her tone.

"What has he said and done to change you like this?" he said. "You speak to him as if you were his slave!"

She looked at him sadly.

Jasper shook his head.

"Wait," he said--"it will be better that you wait. Trust me. I will spare you as much as possible; but it will be better that he should learn all that he has to learn from your lips, here and now."

She bowed her head, and still holding Frank's arm sank into a chair.

The boy was about to burst out again, but she stopped him.

"Hush!" she said, "do not speak, every word cuts me to the heart. Not a word, dear--not another word. Let us wait."

They had not long to wait.

There was a sound of footsteps, hurried and noisy, on the stairs--an impatient, resolute voice uttering a question--then the door was thrown open, and Lord Leycester burst in!

CHAPTER XXX.

Leycester looked round for a moment eagerly, then, utterly disregarding Jasper, he hurried across to Stella, who at his entrance had made an involuntary movement towards him, but had then recoiled, and stood with white face and tightly-clasped hands.

"Stella!" he exclaimed, "why are you here? Why did you not come to Waterloo? Why did you send for me?"

She put her hand in his, and looked him in the face--a look so full of anguish and sorrow that he stared at her in amazement.

"It was I who sent for you, my lord," said Jasper, coldly.

Leycester just glanced at him, then returned to the study of Stella's face.

"Why are you here, Stella?"

She did not speak, but drew her hand away and glanced at Jasper.

That glance would have melted a heart of stone, but his was one of fire and consumed all pity.

"Will you not speak? Great Heaven, what is the matter with you?" demanded Leycester.

Jasper made a step nearer.

Leycester turned upon him, not fiercely, but with contempt and amazement, then turned again to Stella.

"Has anything happened at home--to your uncle?"

"Mr. Etheridge is well," said Jasper.

Then Leycester turned and looked at him.

"Why does this man answer for you?" he said. "I did not put any question to you, sir."

"I am aware of that, my lord," said Jasper, his small eyes glittering with hate and malice, and smoldering fury. The sight of the handsome face, the knowledge that Stella loved this man and hated him, Jasper, maddened and tortured him, even in his hour of triumph. "I am aware of that, Lord Leycester; but as your questions evidently distress and embarrass Miss Etheridge, I take upon myself to answer for her."

Leycester smiled as if at some strange conceit.

"You do indeed take upon yourself," he retorted, with great scorn. "Perhaps you will kindly remain silent."

Jasper's face whitened and winced.

"You are in my apartment, Lord Leycester."

"I regret to admit it. I more deeply regret that this lady should be here. I await her explanation."

"And what if I say she will not gratify your curiosity?" said Jasper, with a malignant smile.

"What will happen, do you mean?" asked Leycester, curtly. "Well, I shall probably throw you out of the window."

Stella uttered a low cry and laid her hand upon his arm; she knew him so well, and had no difficulty in reading the sudden lightning in the dark eyes, and the resolute tightening of the lips. She knew that it was no idle threat, and that a word more from Jasper of the same kind would rouse the fierce, impetuous anger for which Leycester was notorious.

In a moment his anger disappeared.

"I beg your pardon," he murmured, with a loving glance, "I was forgetting myself. I will remember that you are here."

"Now, sir," and he turned to Jasper, "you appear anxious to offer some explanation. Be as brief and as quick as you can, please," he added curtly.

Jasper winced at the tone of command.

"I wished to spare Miss Etheridge," he said. "I have only one desire, and that is to insure her comfort and happiness."

"You are very good," said Leycester, with contemptuous impatience. "But if that is all you have to say we will rid you of our presence, which cannot be welcome. I would rather hear an account of these extraordinary proceedings from this lady's lips, at first, at any rate; afterwards I may trouble you," and his eyes darkened ominously.

Then he went up to Stella, and his voice dropped to a low whisper.

"Come, Stella. You shall tell me what this all means," and he offered her his arm.

But Stella shrank back, with a piteous look in her eyes.

"I cannot go with you," she murmured, as if each word cost her an effort. "Do not ask me!"

"Cannot!" he said, still in the same low voice. "Stella! Why not?"

"I--I cannot tell you! Do not ask me!" was her prayer. "Go now--go and leave me!"

Lord Leycester looked from her to Frank, who shook his head and glared at Jasper.

"I don't understand it, Lord Leycester; it is no use looking to me. I have done as you asked me--at least as far as I was able until I was prevented. We got out at Vauxhall as you wished us to do----"

"I!" said Leycester, not loudly, but with an intense emphasis. "I! I did not ask you to do anything of the kind! I have been waiting for you at Waterloo, and thinking that I had missed you and that you had gone on to--to the place I asked you to go to, I hurried there. A man--Mr. Adelstone's servant, I presume--was waiting, and told me Stella was here waiting for me. I came here--that is all!"

Frank glared at Jasper and raised an accusing finger, which he pointed threateningly.

"Ask _him_ for an explanation!" he said.

Leicester looked at the white, defiant face.

"What jugglery is this, sir?" he demanded. "Am I to surmise that--that this lady was entrapped and brought here against her will?"

Jasper inclined his head.

"You are at liberty to surmise what you will," he said. "If you ask me if it was through my instrumentality that this lady was led to break the assignation you had arranged for her, I answer that it was!"

"Soh!"

It was all Leycester said, but it spoke volumes.

"That I used some strategy to effect my purpose, I don't for a moment deny. I used strategy, because it was necessary to defeat your scheme."

He paused. Leycester stood upright watching him.

"Go on," he said, in a hard, metallic voice.

"I brought her here that I, her uncle's and guardian's friend, might point out to her the danger which lay in the path on which you would entice her. I have made it clear to her that it is impossible she should do as you wish."

He paused again, and Leycester removed his eyes from the pale face and looked at Stella.

"Is what this man says true?" he asked, in a low voice. "Has he persuaded you to break faith with me?"

Stella looked at him, and her hands closed over each other.

"Don't ask her," broke in Frank. "She is not in a fit state to answer. This fellow, this Jasper Adelstone, has bewitched her! I think he has frightened her out of her senses by some threat----"

"Frank! Hush! Oh, hush!" broke from Stella.

Lord Leycester started and eyed her scrutinizingly, but he saw only anguish and pity and sorrow--not guilt--in her face.

"It is true," declared Frank. "This is what she has said, and this only since I came back into the room, and I can't get any more out of her. I think, Lord Leycester, you had better throw him out of the window."

Leycester looked from one to the other. There was evidently more in the case than could be met by following Frank's advice.

He put his hand to his head for a moment.

"I don't understand," he said, almost to himself.

"It is not difficult to understand," said Jasper, with an ill-concealed sneer. "The lady absolutely refuses to keep the appointment you made--you forced upon her. She declines to accompany you. She----"

"Silence," said Leycester, in a low voice that was more terrible than shouting. Then he turned to Stella.

"Is it so?" he asked.

She raised her eyes, and her lips moved.

"Yes," she said.

He looked as if he could not believe the evidence of his senses. The perspiration broke out on his forehead, and his lips trembled, but he made an effort to control himself, and succeeded.

"Is what this man says true, Stella?"

"I--I cannot go with you," she trembled, with downcast eyes.

Leycester looked round the room as if he suspected he must be dreaming.

"What does it mean?" he murmured. "Stella;" and now he addressed her as if he were oblivious of the presence of others. "Stella, I implore, I command you to tell me. Consider what my position is. I--who have been expecting you as--as you know well--find you here, and here you, with your own lips, tell me that all is altered between us; so suddenly, so unreasonably."

"It must be so," she breathed. "If you would only go and leave me!"

He put his hand on the back of a chair to steady himself, and the chair shook.

Jasper stood gloating over his emotion.

"Great Heaven!" he exclaimed, "can I believe my ears? Is this you, Stella--speaking to me in these words and in this fashion? Why!--why!--why!"

And the questions burst forth from him passionately.

She clasped her hands, and looked up at him.

"Do not ask me--I cannot tell. Spare me!"

Leycester turned to Frank.

"Will you--will you leave us, my dear Frank?" he said, hoarsely.

Frank went out slowly, then Leycester turned to Jasper.

"Hear me," he said. "You have given me to understand that the key of this enigma is in your possession; you will be good enough to furnish me with it. There must be no more mystery. Understand once for all, and at once, that I will have no trifling."

"Leycester!"

He put up his hand to her, gently, reassuringly,

"Do not fear; this gentleman has no need to tremble. This matter lies between us three--at present, rather, it lies between you two. I want to be placed on an equality, that is all." And he smiled a fiercely-bitter smile. "Now, sir!"

Jasper bit his lips.

"I have few words to add to what I have already said. I will say them, and I leave it to Miss Etheridge to corroborate them. You wish to know the reason why she did not meet you as you expected, and why she is here instead, and under my protection?"

Leycester moved his hand impatiently.

"The question is easily answered. It is because she is my affianced wife!" said Jasper quietly.

Leycester looked at him steadily, but did not show by a sign that he had been smitten as his adversary had hoped to smite him. Instead, he seemed to recover coolness.

"I have been told," he said, quietly and incisively, "that you are a clever man, Mr. Adelstone. I did not doubt it until this moment. I feel that you must be a fool to hope that I should accept that statement."

Jasper's face grew red under the bitter scorn; he raised his hand and pointed tremblingly to Stella.

"Ask her," he said, hoarsely.

Leycester turned to her with a start.

"For form's sake," he said, almost apologetically, "I will ask you, Stella. Is this true?"

She raised her eyes.

"It is true," she breathed.

Leycester turned white for the first time, and seemed unable to withdraw his eyes from hers for a moment, then he walked up to her and took her hands.

"Look at me!" he said, in a low, constrained voice. "Do you know that I am here?--I--am--here!--that I came here to protect you? That whatever this man has said to force this mad avowal from your lips I will make him answer for! Stella! Stella! If you do not wish to drive me mad, look at me and tell me that this is a lie!"

She looked at him sadly, sorrowfully.

"It is true--true," she said.

"Of your own free will?--you hesitate! Ah!"

She flung her hands before her eyes for a moment to gain strength to deal him the blow, then with white constrained face she said--

"Of my own free will!"

He dropped her hands, but stood looking at her.

Jasper's voice aroused him from the stupor which fell upon him.

"Come, my lord," he said, in a dry, cold voice, "you have received your answer. Let me suggest that you have inflicted more than enough pain upon this lady, and let me remind you that as I am her affianced husband I have the right to request you to leave her in peace."

Leycester turned to him slowly, but without speaking to him went up to Stella.