There was amazing force in the utterance, he also had thrown off the shackles. But his strength had about it nothing of the brute. Stripped to the soul, he stood up a man. And against his will Eustace recognized the fact, realized the Invincible manifest in the clay, and in spite of himself was influenced thereby. The savage in him drew back abashed, aware of mastery. Abruptly he released him and turned away. "You're a fool to tempt me," he said. "And a still greater fool to take her seriously. As I tell you, it's nothing but stage-fright. She had a touch of it yesterday. I'll come round presently and make it all right." "You can only make it right by setting her free," Scott made answer. "There is no other course. Do you suppose I should have come to you in this way if there had been?" Sir Eustace was moving to the door by which he had entered. He flung a backward look that was intensely evil over his shoulder at the puny figure of the man behind him. "I can imagine you playing any damned trick under the sun to serve your own interests," he said, his lip curling in in an intolerable sneer. "But the deepest strategy fails occasionally. You haven't been quite subtle enough this time." He was at the door as he uttered the last biting sentence, but so also was Scott. With a movement of incredible swiftness and impetuosity he flung himself forward. Their hands met upon the handle, and his remained in possession, for in sheer astonishment Eustace drew back. They faced one another in the evening light, Scott pale to the lips, in his eyes an electric blaze that made them almost unbearably bright, Eustace, heavy-browed, lowering, the red glare of savagery gleaming like a smouldering flame, ready to leap forth in devastating fury to meet the fierce white heat that confronted him. An awful silence hung between them--a silence of unutterable emotions, more poignant with passion than any strife or clash of weapons. And through it like a mocking under-current there ran the distant tinkle of the piano, the echoes of careless laughter beyond the closed door. Then at last--it seemed with difficulty--Scott spoke, his voice very low, oddly jerky. "What do you mean by that? Tell me what you mean!" Sir Eustace made an abrupt gesture,--the gesture of the swordsman on guard. He met the attack instantly and unwaveringly, but his look was wary. He did not seek to throw the lesser man from his path. As it were instinctively, though possibly for the first time in his life, he treated him as an equal. "You know what I mean!" he made fierce rejoinder. "Even you can hardly pretend ignorance on that point." "Even I!" Scott uttered a short, hard laugh that seemed to escape him against his will. "All the same, I will have an explanation," he said. "I prefer a straight charge, notwithstanding my damned subtlety. You will either explain or withdraw."