How shall he tell this man, who was once his dearest friend, that he has behaved as a very traitor to him. "In the stables, no doubt," replies she, scornfully. The change in his manner has not touched her; nay, he tells himself it has not so much as been noticed by her. Moving abruptly away, he goes down the hall and out of the open door, and down the stone steps across the gleaming sunshine, and so is lost to sight. Dulce watches him until the portico outside hides him from view, and then, walking very slowly and with bent head, she goes in the direction of Fabian's room. She is so absorbed in her own reflections that she hardly hears approaching footsteps, until they are quite close to her. Looking up, with a quick start, she finds herself face to face with Roger. The surprise is so sudden that she has not time to change color until she has passed him. Involuntarily she moves more quickly, as though to escape him, but he follows her, and standing right before her, compels her to stop and confront him. "One moment," he says. His tone is haughty, but his eyes are more searching than unkind. "You meant what you said last evening?" he asks, quickly, and there is a ring in his voice that tells her he will be glad if she can answer him in the negative. Hearing it, she grows even paler, and shrinks back from him. "Have I given you any reason to doubt it?" she says, coldly. "No--certainly not." His tone has grown even haughtier. "I wish, however, to let you know I regret anything uncivil I may have said to you on--that is--at our last interview." "It is too late for regrets." She says this so low that he can scarcely hear her. "You are bent, then, upon putting an end to everything between us?" "Yes." At this moment it seems impossible to her to answer him in anything but a monosyllable. Her obstinacy angers him. "Perhaps you are equally bent," he says, sneeringly, "upon marrying Gower?" I suppose he has expected an indignant denial to this question, because, when silence follows it, he starts, and placing both his hands upon her shoulders, draws her deliberately over to a side window, and stares into her downcast face. "Speak," he says roughly. "_Are_ you going to marry him?" "Yes." The word comes with difficulty from between her pale, dry lips. "He has asked you?" "He has." "You were engaged to him even _before_ you broke off your engagement with me?" "Oh, _no_, NO!" "Since when, then? Was it last evening he spoke to you?" "Yes." "After you had parted from me? Sharp work, upon my life." He laughs--a short, unmirthful laugh--and taking his hands from her shoulders, moves back from her, yet always with his eyes on her face. "You should be glad," she says, slowly.