“You would not wish to hold an unwilling captive,” he replied, with a touch of scorn, and she saw that it would be impossible to hold him without a sacrifice of her pride. Curbing herself a little, she asked humbly: “Hadn’t we better take time to think it over, Norman? I admit I was jealous and a little hasty.” He looked disappointed and uneasy. Was she really going to hold him to that bond of which he was so weary, against which he chafed so fiercely? She caught that look, and comprehended it with bitter mortification. Anger came to her aid. “Go--you are free as air, and I am well rid of a fickle flirt,” she exclaimed hotly. “I thank you, Miss Ives,” he replied, in a tone of relief, and, bowing coldly, he walked away toward the house, leaving Juliette stamping on the soft grass in a tempest of fury and disappointment. He was anxious to find little Pansy and explain his conduct to her. Surely she would forgive him when she knew that it was for her sake he had broken faith with Juliette Ives. Of course she would be ready to make up with him. And his heart throbbed madly at the thought that sweet Pansy’s love was all his own. He knew that there would be a bitter battle with his relatives, but he was determined to make her his wife. CHAPTER III. A JEALOUS RAGE. Juliette Ives rushed up to the house presently and poured the story of her lover’s treachery into the ears of her mother, who became quite indignant at the turn affairs were taking. “I will go at once to the farmer’s wife, and give her a piece of my mind about her impudent niece,” she said, and she went immediately to Mrs. Robbins, who was in the pantry, labeling the nice jars of preserves she had made that day. “I have come to complain of your niece, that bold factory girl, who has been making trouble between my daughter and the gentleman she’s engaged to,” she began. Mrs. Robbins looked around in amazement. “What has Pansy done, ma’am, to be called sech names?” she exclaimed, rather resentfully; and then Mrs. Ives poured out a garbled version of poor Pansy’s flirtation with Norman Wylde, making it appear that she was a bold, forward creature, who had actually forced the gentleman to pay her attention. “Maybe she thinks he will marry her and make her a fine lady, but she’s mistaken,” she sneered. “It’s only a way he has of flirting, but it means nothing, as many a poor girl in Richmond and elsewhere knows to her cost. He’s very wild, but he promised my daughter, when she accepted him, that he would reform. I believe he was trying to do so, but when Pansy Laurens kept throwing herself in his way he couldn’t resist the temptation to make a fool of her. So when my daughter caught him kissing the girl, just now, in the hammock, she discarded him at once, and he’s so angry he’ll maybe fall into some mischief that will make Pansy Laurens rue the day she ever saw him. If I were you, Mrs. Robbins, I’d send the girl home to her mother at once,” she advised eagerly.