“She has not accepted you--and you know it. You are trying to keep me away from her--arrogating rights which you do not possess. Give her up, man, give her up. It will be best for you. She will listen to me--I can win her all right--but you must stand aside for me this time. Take the word of a desperate man for it, Baddock. It will be best for you to give her up.” Silence reigned in the wood for a few moments, and then we heard Philip Baddock’s voice again, but he seemed to speak more calmly, almost indifferently, as I thought. “Are you going now?” he asked. “Won’t you come in to dinner?” “No,” replied Felkin, “I don’t want any dinner, and I have an appointment for afterwards.” “Don’t let us part ill friends, Felkin,” continued Philip Baddock in conciliatory tones. “Do you know that, personally, my feeling is that no woman on earth is worth a serious quarrel between two old friends, such as we have been.” “I’m glad you think so,” rejoined the other drily. “S’long.” The cracking of twigs on the moss-covered ground indicated that the two men had parted and were going their several ways. With infinite caution, and holding my hand tightly in hers, my dear lady made her way along the narrow path which led us out of the wood. Once in the road we walked rapidly, and soon reached our garden gate. Lady Molly had not spoken a word during all that time, and no one knew better than I did how to respect her silence. During dinner she tried to talk of indifferent subjects, and never once alluded to the two men whom she had thus wilfully pitted one against the other. That her calm was only on the surface, however, I realised from the fact that every sound on the gravel path outside caused her to start. She was, of course, expecting the visit of Mr. Felkin. At eight o’clock he came. It was obvious that he had spent the past hour in wandering about in the woods. He looked untidy and unkempt. My dear lady greeted him very coldly, and when he tried to kiss her hand she withdrew it abruptly. Our drawing-room was a double one, divided by _portière_ curtains. Lady Molly led the way into the front room, followed by Mr. Felkin. Then she drew the curtains together, leaving me standing behind them. I concluded that she wished me to stay there and to listen, conscious of the fact that Felkin, in the agitated mood in which he was, would be quite oblivious of my presence. I almost pitied the poor man, for to me--the listener--it was at once apparent that my dear lady had only bidden him come to-night in order to torture him. For about a year she had been playing with him as a cat does with a mouse; encouraging him at times with sweet words and smiles, repelling him at others with coldness not unmixed with coquetry. But to-night her coldness was unalloyed; her voice was trenchant, her attitude almost one of contempt.