"Stamped--a sixpenny stamp, as I'm a sinner! Do you know, my dear, that this is a bill form which you've got here, good for any amount up to fifty pounds. Wherever did you get the thing? And what use do you suppose it is to you? What a practical-minded child it is! And I never guessed it till now! Tis a wonderful world that we live in!" "You get a pen and write." He took a fountain pen and a blotting pad from a table at the side, and spread out on the latter the crumpled bill stamp. "Here we are. Now for the writing. 'Three months after date I promise to pay.' Is that the sort of thing I'm to write?" "You write what I tell you." "Tell on; I'm waiting." "Write: 'I, Rodney Elmore, promise to marry on Thursday next Mabel Joyce, who is about to bear a child of which I am the father.' Have you got that? Why aren't you writing?" "Before I start I want to see the finish; that is, I want to know all that I am to write." "Except your signature and the date, that is all." "Rather a considerable all, eh? What use do you suppose this will be to you when you've got it?" "That's my business." "What do you propose to do with it?" "Nothing. If you marry me I'll give it you before we leave the registrar's." "And if I don't?" "You'll be in gaol." "I see; that's it. If I don't write I'm in the cart, and if I do write and don't marry I'm also in the cart." "I'm fighting for my life." "And I lose mine either way." "How do you make that out? Who's there to be afraid of except me?" "If I do marry you I might as well be dead, and if I don't you'll do your best to bring my death about." She was silent. They eyed each other, she standing at one side of the table, he sitting at the other. In the white-faced woman, with the rigid features and close-set lips, who looked at him with such unfaltering gaze, he scarcely recognised the pretty, dainty, blue-eyed girl whom it seemed only yesterday he had wooed and won. He was sufficiently a physiognomist and student of character to be aware that this woman meant every word she said. As this knowledge was borne more clearly in on him a curious something came into his own eyes--the something which had been there last night in the train. He spoke very softly. "Mabel?" Her voice fell as his had done. "Well?" "We are alone together in the house, you and I." "We are; as you were alone with your uncle in the railway carriage." "Why shouldn't I serve you as you persist in hinting that I served him? What reason is there?" "None." "Then--why shouldn't I?" "You can." "I can--what?" "Kill me." "Knowing me, as you pretended to know me, you're not afraid?" "I shall never be afraid of you." "You seem to flatter me all at once." "I don't care what you do to me. I'd rather you killed me than not marry me--much." "You wouldn't be so easy to explain. You'd want a lot of explaining if they found you dead." When he stopped she was still looking at him with eyes which never flinched. He went on: