Standing on tiptoe, she put her lips to the idol's ear and whispered. Frederic, across the room, roused from his lethargy by the strange words and still stranger action, rose to his feet and took several steps toward her. “There! Now you know everything. You know more than James Brood knows, for you know what his charming wife is about to do next.” She drew back and regarded the image through half-closed, smouldering eyes. “But he will know before long--before long.” “What are you doing, Yvonne?” demanded Frederic unsteadily. She whirled about and came toward him, her hands still clasped behind her back. “Come with me,” she said, ignoring his question. “He--he thinks I am in love with you,” said he, shaking his head. “And are you not in love with me?” He was startled. “Good Lord, Yvonne!” She came quite close to him. He could feel the warmth that travelled from her body across the short space that separated them. The intoxicating perfume filled his nostrils; he drew a deep breath, his eyes closing slowly as his senses prepared to succumb to the delicious spell that came over him. When he opened them an instant later she was still facing him, as straight and fearless as a soldier, and the light of victory was in her dark, compelling eyes. “Well,” she said deliberately, “I am ready to go away with you.” He fell back stunned beyond the power of speech. His brain was filled with a thousand clattering noises. “He has turned you out,” she went on rapidly. “He disowns you. Very well; the time has come for me to exact payment of him for that and for all that has gone before. I shall go away with you. I------” “Impossible!” he cried, finding his tongue and drawing still farther away from her. “Are you not in love with me?” she whispered softly. He put his hands to his eyes to shut out the alluring vision. “For God's sake, Yvonne--leave me. Let me go my way. Let me------” “He cursed your mother! He curses you! He damns you--as he damned her. You can pay him up for everything. You owe nothing to him. He has killed every------” Frederic straightened up suddenly and, with a loud cry of exultation, raised his clenched hands above his head. “By Heaven, I will break him! I will make him pay! Do you know what he has done to me? Listen to this: he boasts of having reared me to manhood, as one might bring up a prize beast, that he might make me pay for the wrong that my poor mother did a quarter of a century ago. All these years he has had in mind this thing that he has done to-day. All my life has been spent in preparation for the sacrifice that came an hour ago. I have suffered all these years in ignorance of------” “Not so loud!” she whispered, alarmed by the vehemence of his reawakened fury.