“It’s that grinning Yankee!” he cried. “He’s been making love to you and filling your head with crazy notions. Oh, you needn’t deny it! I’m not blind! I’ve seen what was going on every time I came over.” “Julian!” she cried, rising to her feet. “Yes, I have!” he went on, leaping up and facing her. “A fine thing to do, isn’t it?” he sneered. “Keep me dangling on your string and all the while accept attentions from a married man! And a blasted Northerner, too! Mighty pleased your father would have been!” “Julian! You forget yourself!” said Holly, quietly. “You have no right to talk this way to me!” “It’s you who forget yourself,” he answered, slashing his riding-whip against his boots. “And if I haven’t the right to call you to account I’d like to know who has! Miss Indy’s blind, I reckon, but I’m not!” Holly’s face had faded to a white mask from which her dark eyes flashed furiously. But her voice, though it trembled, was quiet and cold. “You’ll beg my pardon, Julian Wayne, for what you’ve said before I’ll speak to you again. Mr. Winthrop has never made love to me in his life.” She turned toward the door. “You don’t dare deny, though, that you love him!” cried Julian, roughly. “I don’t deny it! I won’t deny it!” cried Holly, facing him in a blaze of wrath. “I deny nothing to you. You have no right to know. But if I did love Mr. Winthrop, married though he is, I’d not be ashamed of it. He is at least a gentleman!” She swept into the house. “By God!” whispered Julian, the color rushing from his face. “By God! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” He staggered down the steps, beating the air with his whip. A moment later, Holly, sitting with clenched hands and heaving breast in her room, heard him shouting for Uncle Ran and his horse. Ten minutes later he was riding like a whirlwind along the Marysville road, White Queen in an ecstasy of madness as the whip rose and fell. But by the time the distance was half covered Julian’s first anger had cooled, leaving in its place a cold, bitter wrath toward Winthrop, to whom he laid the blame not only of Holly’s defection but of his loss of temper and brutality. He was no longer incensed with Holly; it was as plain as a pikestaff that the sneaking Yankee had bewitched her with his damned grinning face and flattering attentions, all the while, doubtless, laughing at her in his sleeve! His smouldering rage blazed up again and with a muttered oath Julian raised his whip. But at Queen’s sudden snort of terror he let it drop softly again, compunction gripping him. He leaned forward and patted the wet, white neck soothingly. “Forgive me, girl,” he whispered. “I was a brute to take it out on you. There, there, easy now; quiet, quiet!” On Monday Holly received a letter from him. It was humbly apologetic, and self-accusing. It made no reference to Winthrop, nor did it refer to the matter of the broken engagement; only―― [Illustration]