He puffed out some smoke on to the damp air, and Camilla watched it wreathe and separate and finally fade into the mist that was gathering about the trees; watched it with eyes dry and hot with misery and shame and fear. Suddenly Broxbourne turned to her. "You must break with this man," he said; "I have a prior claim. I don't intend to let you marry him." She stood still and looked at him with dilated eyes. "Break my engagement? Impossible.... _Impossible_!" Her heart was throbbing in her breast, her lips were white. "Nothing is impossible," answered the man; "after all, I am not treating you badly. If I did the right thing, I should go straight to Haverford. What do you think he'd say, if he heard my pretty little story? How you begged a cheque out of me for a charity bazaar, and how, by chance having got hold of a blank cheque of mine, you filled it in for a nice large sum, and signed my name, by Gad! as bold as brass! I remember," said Broxbourne, shaking the ash from his cigarette, "I was in a tearing hurry when I answered your letter--it was the very day I left for America, in fact. I just scribbled the small cheque anyhow, and never noticed that as I tore it out of my cheque-book I tore a blank one with it. But you found that out in double quick time, didn't you?..." Camilla turned to him. The hard, dry look had gone from her eyes; they were dim with tears. "Sammy!" she said brokenly, "don't rub it in so hard. I know.... I _know_ how horrible this thing is! When you came back last November, I nearly died when I saw you. I prepared myself for everything, and when you were so friendly, when you said nothing, I began to hope, even to believe, you did not know. Why did you not speak then? Don't you see how much worse it is for me now?" Sir Samuel smiled at her. "Of course it is," he said, his cigarette between his teeth; "I know that.... I tumbled to your little game with this man the very moment I came back, and I promised myself some fun. It tickled me to death to have you running after me just as if you liked me, pretending to want me, and imagining you were throwing dust in my eyes! I settled then I would wait awhile. Worse for you! Well, do you want me to say 'I am sorry?'" "I ... I want you to be merciful ... I am in your hands, I know it--but you--you won't be cruel to me, Sammy," said Camilla, in that same moved voice. She caught her breath. "If Rupert Haverford must be told ... I will tell him...." She turned to Broxbourne abruptly. "Do you know why I have promised to marry him? It is for my children's sake. Ned's father suddenly stopped the money he had been giving me, and demanded the children. If I had not done this thing, made them, myself, independent, he would have taken them from me. It is the truth I am telling you, Sammy--the truth. The children are more to me than life...." Broxbourne answered her coolly; he was unmoved by her broken voice and her stained face.