“Hard upon you!” she echoed. “As if anybody could be too hard upon you. You! Do you know what I meant to do if you hadn’t turned up? I’ll tell you.” She came a step nearer. “I meant to go up to the house--what’s it called, your father-in-law’s grand place?” (no words would convey an idea of the diabolical mockery of her tone)--“your father-in-law’s place, and ask for you. I don’t think they’d have refused me, when I’d told them who and what I was to you.” “For God’s sake, don’t go on like this, Bella,” he said, nervously, his eyes half-raised imploringly. “I’m--I’m at your mercy, I know. If--if you had turned up before yesterday, if it had only been the day before, I wouldn’t have done this; but--but it was too late then. I--I couldn’t break it off.” “You’re a nice villain, ain’t you?” she sneered. “I wonder what they’d do to you if I up and told them all, eh?” “God knows,” he said, hoarsely. “But you won’t do that, for your own sake.” “For my own sake,” she repeated, advancing upon him threateningly. “Why should I care? I wouldn’t mind. Don’t you dare me! If you only knew what a little would make me do it, how I’m simply dying for the fun that it would make, you wouldn’t talk like that, you scoundrel!” “Hush, hush,” he said, looking round nervously. “You’ll--you’ll have somebody hear you. The place is full of people; some one may come this way any moment----” “And find Mr. Bartley Bradstone has left his newly-made bride to meet a strange young woman in his father-in-law’s park.” She leaned against the tree and laughed with malicious enjoyment. “What a row there’d be! What a prime, glorious row! Lord! I’d like to be in it. As for you”--her tone changed--“you deserve anything. Nothing’s too bad for you. You to go and make a victim of that girl! What harm had she done you, I should like to know?” “Hush!” “And what did she marry you for?” she went on, unheeding his remonstrance. “You don’t mean to tell me she cares for you, because if you do I’d tell you that you lied. She care for you! Why, you ain’t fit to wipe the dust off her boots! And--you’ve--married her!” “Bella, listen to me,” he said, hoarsely. “I’ve--I’ve met you as you insisted, you know at what risk, and I’ve brought you what you wanted and fifty pounds more. Now, what are you going to do? Be sensible, for Heaven’s sake, be sensible. It--it can’t matter to you what I’ve done.” “You’re right. So far as you are concerned,” she put in with unmitigated contempt, “you might marry twenty times a month for what I cared.” “I know that; don’t I say so?” he went on hurriedly, “and--and so--as it’s a matter of indifference to you--you said so, you know--why--why, you can keep your tongue quiet. There’s--there’s no reason why--why anybody should know anything about. If--if we meet at any time, you--you--can pass me by----” She stopped him with a laugh. “Do you think I’m a child?” she said, scornfully. “I know what you want, and I’ll do it--for a price.”