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desperate
resolution that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once
got control of his body.
    "Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a
devil."
    Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.
    "A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip
of her dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not
hesitate long over this matter; a week, perhaps."
    "I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my
course easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."
    Still she was not abashed.
    "It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such
unnecessary struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain
of you then. This day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."
    He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage,
shook her with a desperate hand.
    "Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his
face, notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.
    "I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home
just now I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain
hollow tree, where you and I have held more than one tryst,
conceals within its depths a package containing over one thousand
dollars. Frederick, I hold your life in my hands."
    The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled
upon his features, and recognising the impossibility of further
concealing the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair
and covered his face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of
triumph, which brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it
was to say:
    "If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set,
well and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should
be shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day.
Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."
    He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.
    Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture
of passion and elation.
    "You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our
armistice lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me
while any hope remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I
have suggested."
    And still he did not move.
    "Frederick?"
    Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger
snarl one moment and fawn the next?
    "Frederick, I have a final word to say—a last farewell. Up to
this hour I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted
them, for I always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the
master of my heart. But now it is love that I feel, love; and love
with me is no fancy, but a passion—do you hear?—a passion which
will make life a heaven or hell for the man who has inspired it.
You should have thought of this when you opposed me."
    And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery,
she bent and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she
was gone.
    Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil,
he rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered
that she had been detained in the hall by two or three men who had
just come in by the front door.
    "Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.
    "Yes, I am Miss Page—Amabel Page" she replied with suave
politeness. "If you have any business with me, state it quickly,
for I am about to leave town."
    "That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man
who seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over
the remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard
yourself as a possible witness."
    "Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide
opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished
child. "What have I got to do with it?"
    "You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and—well,
the coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the
town without running the risk of arrest"
    "Then I will stay in it," she