“It pains me to give you pain,” she said, “but you must consider my answer quite final. It would be false kindness to give you the least hope. I do not love you, I could never under any circumstances love you; you do not in any single particular suit me. As your wife I should be miserable—I should be worse, I should even be bad. I could never be the wife of one I do not sincerely love. If you were the last man left in the world I could not marry you, Dr. Tarbot. Is not that decisive enough?” “It is, and I am undone,” said Tarbot. His face grew ghastly white; he staggered against the window frame. Without a word Barbara turned and left him. She entered the gaily lighted room. Tarbot, leaning against the window frame, watched her as she did so. CHAPTER II. A MAN’S REVENGE. Barbara looked like a beautiful white lily. Her long neck slightly drooped as she walked down the room. Tarbot’s face as he watched her became more and more ugly; the devil was fairly aroused in him. “If I cannot have that woman for my wife I shall go under,” he muttered. “But she shall be mine—I swear it. Only a rival can kill hope. If there is a rival, _if_”—he clenched his hand—“he shall rue it,” he muttered; “the man, whoever he is, shall rue it—he shall rue it to his dying day.” At that moment Tarbot’s worst fears were confirmed. He could see well into the big drawing-room, and just then he noticed a man who, in irreproachable evening costume, with a rose in his button-hole, came forward and clasped one of Barbara’s white hands. The man was tall, fair, and remarkably good-looking: his face was clean-shaven, his mouth sweet in expression, his eyes full of kindliness. They were good eyes, gray in color and well open. Barbara looked up into his face, and there was an expression in hers which Tarbot saw and interpreted aright. That expression was the last straw. It turned the disappointed man’s blood into gall. He clenched both his hands tightly. They were the hands of a surgeon—beautifully formed, firm, and cool as steel. He clenched them so hard now that the nails penetrated the skin. His face felt cold; a moment later it was bathed in perspiration. Fury ungovernable raged in his heart. He trembled all over. For a moment he could scarcely see clearly; then, rubbing one of his hands across his eyes, he pulled himself together with a great effort. Once more he bent forward and glanced into the drawing-room. The crowds were still there, the crush was at its height, but the pair he sought had vanished.