"But when we meet her it will be in defiance. I have thought out a plan." "Then carry it out," she said. "I will have nothing whatever to do with it." "I may compel you," he said, with slow distinctness. "You have already compelled me to act as your accomplice, but you have strained my bonds until they can resist no longer. I intend to break them." "That is indeed very interesting!" He laughed, treating her as though she were a spoilt child. "Yes," she cried furiously, "I will kill myself!" "And leave me to make a scandalous explanation." "Then you would besmirch my good name after my death?" she said, turning upon him quickly. "Ah, yes! You show yourself in your true colours. You would even weave about me a web of infamy, so as to prevent me taking my life. I hate and detest you!" "That's not the first time you have informed me of that fact, my dear," he responded, perfectly coolly. "If it were not for you I should now be a happy girl. Thanks to you I am, however, one of the most wretched of all God's creatures." "You need not be. You are petted in your own circle of friends, and your reputation remains unsullied." "I occupy a false position," she declared. "What would Cyril say if he knew the truth?" "A woman should never study the man who is to be her husband. It makes him far too conceited; and, moreover, she is sure to regret it in after-life." He was at times shrewdly philosophical, this scoundrel who held my wife beneath his thrall. "I have you--only you--to thank for my present position. Believed by the world to be an honest, innocent girl, and accepted as such, I nevertheless fear from hour to hour that the truth may be revealed, and that I may find myself in the hands of the police. Death is preferable to this constant, all-consuming dread." "The unreasonableness and pertinacity of woman is extraordinary!" he exclaimed in a tone of impatience. "What good can possibly result from this duel between us? Why not let us unite in defeating La Gioia?" "That I refuse to do." "But our position is serious--most serious," he pointed out. "Suppose that she discovers you!" "Well, what then?" "You must be entirely at her mercy," he said in a deep voice. "And you know the fiendishness of her vengeance." "I know," she responded in a voice scarcely above at whisper, the voice of a woman driven to desperation. "But you must arm yourself against her," he urged. "Together we are strong enough to defeat any attack that she may make." "Tell me plainly," she asked, dropping her voice until it was scarcely above a whisper, "do you, yourself, fear her?" "Yes. She is the only person who, besides ourselves, knows the truth," he responded in a low tone. "And you would set a trap into which she will fall?" she went on, still in a whisper. "Come, do not let us prevaricate longer. You intend to kill her?" There was dead silence. At last her companion spoke. "Well," he answered, "and if your surmise is correct?"