“Bah! your audacity is astounding!” said Geoffrey, contemptuously. “It was a barefaced fraud, and the marriage will never stand in law,” persisted Geoffrey, firmly, but oh! with such a sinking agony in his heart. “Prove it if you can,” retorted Mapleson, arrogantly. “You will not find it an easy thing to do, however, for I shall make a desperate fight to thwart you.” “Wretch! how dare you attempt such a diabolical plot?” Mr. Huntress demanded. “I was desperate enough to dare anything, sir,” Everet replied, addressing him with more respect then he had yet shown. “With the love I bear your daughter I could not brook defeat. I vowed that I would win her at any cost, and but for my own indiscretion all this fuss might have been avoided. I was so elated by my success in having the marriage performed that I could not resist taking advantage of my position, and, in attempting to salute my bride after our return to the house, she recognized me. If I had done nothing to attract her especial attention to me, the next two hours might have been tided over well enough, and, once on the way to Boston, _en route_ for Europe, I could have laughed at any outside interference.” Geoffrey shivered. It was dreadful to have to listen to these revelations, and to realize what a narrow escape Gladys had had, for he knew that if Everet Mapleson had succeeded in deceiving her until the steamer sailed, the shock of her discovery, when alone, and in the power of the audacious scoundrel, might have resulted in her death. Even now they might not be able to secure her release, and she would still have to remain his wife in the sight of the world, but no moral obligation bound her to him, and no power could ever compel her to live with him. “Could you ever hope to gain any satisfaction in the presence of a wife who would loathe the very sight of you, and whom you knew would never cease to love another?” Mr. Huntress demanded, with curling lips. “‘Love begets love,’ you know, and I imagine it would not have been such a hopeless task, after all, to win the heart of my wife, with such devotion as I have to offer her,” Everet Mapleson flippantly replied. Geoffrey’s blood boiled as much at his confident, arrogant tone, as at his words, and almost before he had concluded, he walked straight up to him, seized him by the coat collar, wheeled him about, and marching him to the head of the stairs, pointed below and said, in a stern, authoritative tone, as he released his hold of him: “_Go!_” The young man was so taken aback by this summary act, that he did not even offer to resist until he reached the top stair, when he put out his hand and seized the railing. He turned, with blazing eyes, and faced Geoffrey, but the expression which he saw upon his face warned him that he had no irresolute spirit to deal with. “Go!” reiterated Geoffrey, inflexibly, “or I may be tempted beyond my strength and forget one of the ‘thou shalt nots.’”