"You had better not refuse!" retorts Mamma, with a glare of rage. Before Leslie's mind comes the picture of little Daisy, and following it a panorama of horrors. Again she feels her strength deserting her. "Wait," she whispers with her last fragment of self-command. "Leave me to myself. Before sunset you shall have my answer." Further words are useless. Mamma, seeing this, turns slowly away, saying only, as she pauses at the door: "Don't waste your time; _delays are dangerous_." CHAPTER LXVIII. A PROMISE RETRACTED. Left alone, Leslie Warburton faced her problem, and found herself mastered by it. She had believed herself already overwhelmed with misery--had fancied that in coming among these people who claimed her, she had taken the last step down into the valley of humiliation, of shame, of utter wretchedness. But they had shown her a lower depth still, and bidden her descend into it. Should she obey them? Her pulses were throbbing violently, a fierce flame burned in either cheek, a shade of the old delirium lurked in her eye. Should she crown her list of miseries with this culminating horror? Why should she not? What had she to lose? She, who had already lost husband, home and happiness; she, who was already an outcast, accused of treachery, of child-stealing, of murder; she, who was only a waif at best, and who could claim no kindred unless she accepted those whose roof then sheltered her? What had she to lose? Only her life, and that must end soon. Why not make this last sacrifice, then let it end. Her calmness, that before had been at best but the calmness of despair, had forsaken her; had changed to the recklessness of desperation. Faster and faster throbbed her pulses, hotter surged the blood through her fevered veins, wilder gleamed the light of her eyes. Born of her weakness, her misery, her growing delirium, came a fierce, unreasoning rebellion; a longing to thrust upon the shoulders of Alan Warburton, who, more than any other, had been the cause of her present woe, a portion of this weight that dragged her down. Had she not suffered enough for the "Warburton honor?" Why not force him to tread with her this valley of humiliation? Then followed other thoughts--better thoughts, humbler thoughts, but all morbid, all tinged by her half delirious fancy, all reckless of self. And now every moment adds to her torture, increases the fever in her blood, the frenzy of her brain. "I _must_ end it!" she cries wildly. "I _must_ save Daisy! And after that what matter how my day goes out?" She walks swiftly to the door and attempts to open it. Useless; it is fastened from the outer side. She seizes the handle and shakes it fiercely. It seems an hour, it is really a moment, when Mamma unlocks the door and appears before her. "You--" "I have decided," breaks in Leslie. "I shall make the sacrifice." "You will marry this worthy man?" "I will save Daisy from your clutches, and his." "In his own way?"