“Right!” John Bruce echoed almost fiercely. His soul itself seemed suddenly to be in passionate turmoil; it seemed to juggle two figures before his consciousness, contrasting one with the other in most hideous fashion--this woman here whom he loved, who struggled to hold herself bravely, who stood for all that was pure, for all that he reverenced in a woman; and that sallow, evil-faced degenerate, a drug fiend so lost to the shame of his vice that he pricked himself with his miserable needle quite as unconcernedly in public as one would smoke a cigarette--and worse--a crook--a thief! Was it a coward's act to tell this girl _what_ the man was whom she proposed to marry? Was it contemptible to pull a rival such as that down from the pedestal which in some fiendish way he must have erected for himself? Surely she did not know the man for what he actually was! She could not know! “Right!” he cried out. “Yes, I have the right--both for your sake and for my own. I have the right my love gives me. Do you know how I came here that first night?” “Yes,” she said with an effort. “You told me. You were in a fight in Ratti's place, and were wounded.” He laughed out harshly. “And I told you the truth--as far as it went,” he said. “But do you know how I came to be in this locality after leaving you in that motor car? I followed you. I loved you from the moment I saw you that night. It seems as though I have always loved you--as I always shall love you. That is what gives me the right to speak. And I mean to speak. If it were an honorable man to whom you were to be married it would be quite another matter; but you cannot know what you are doing, you do not know this man as he really is, or what he----” “Please! Please stop!” she cried out brokenly. “Nothing you could say would tell me anything I do not already know.” “I am not so sure!” said John Bruce grimly. “Suppose I told you he was a criminal?” “He is a criminal.” Her voice was without inflection. “Suppose then he were sent to jail--to serve a sentence?” “I would marry him when he came out,” she said. “Oh, please do not say any more! I know far more about him than you do; but--but that has nothing to do with it.” For an instant, motionless, John Bruce stared at Claire; then his hands swept out and caught her wrists in a tight grip and held her prisoner. “Claire!” His voice choked. “What does this mean? You do not love him; you say you know he is even a criminal--and yet you are going to marry him! What hold has he got on you? What is it? What damnable trap has he got you in? I am going to know, Claire! I will know! And whatever it is, whatever the cause of it, I'll crush it, strangle it, sweep it out of your dear life at any cost! Tell me, Claire!” Her face had gone white; she struggled a little to release herself. “You--you do not know what you are saying. You----” Her voice broke in a half sob. “Claire, look at me!” He was pleading now with his soul in his eyes and voice. “Claire, I----”