“Ismay, answer me!” How stern his voice was. “Is there any other man who ever said he loved you, that you should think of him now?” With the sure instinct that the truth alone could answer him, she turned to him, her face white and hard as he had never seen it. “Did you think I meant you when I said ‘Mark’? I meant”--somehow, she seemed as tall as he as she faced him--“the man my mother means to marry me to. He is staying with us now. When I said his name and not yours I meant that with his eyes on me I would never dare to wear it.” “Staying with you now? What for?” His heart revolted at the thought of guests in a house of mourning. “And why should you mind his seeing it? What is he to you?” “Nothing. A thing so small that I would kill myself before I fell into his hands. And that is what would happen if he saw me wearing your ring.” “Ismay, don’t speak in riddles. Tell me what you mean. What right has any man to object to your wearing my ring?” “Don’t speak to me like that. I can’t bear it.” To his shame he saw that she was crying. Ismay, who never cried, to whose eyes tears were strangers! “Oh, he can do anything, anything,” she sobbed. “He--he knows something about my mother; she is afraid of him.” “My sweet, my poor sweet.” The man who had done his best to threaten that mother into leaving Marchant’s Hold felt suddenly guilty and ashamed. “What can I say to you? But if you would listen to me and get your mother on my side I think I could make short work of him for her.” “Can you blot out the past?” said Ismay Trelane. She wiped away her tears that shamed her; was she no stronger than Cristiane that she must cry in her pain? Very pitifully the man kissed her. “I would do anything on earth for you!” he whispered. “Can’t you tell me what it is he knows?” “She’s my mother.” Once more she held her head up, proudly, lest he should see her wince at her mother’s shame. “And as for Marcus Wray, I will beat him yet, and then you can marry me--if you will.” “I’d rather help you.” But she made no answer as they hurried homeward, his ring still on her finger, the little scarab, that he had forgotten, safe inside the palm of her other hand. “I’m coming over to-morrow to see Cristiane,” he threatened, as he left her in the garden. “Oh, Miles, don’t,” she cried sharply; “or, if you come, wait for me there by the lake behind those cedars. I daren’t see you before Marcus Wray. And yet I may want you.” “What do you mean, sweet?” But she only laughed, and the laugh was not good to hear. “I don’t know; but you’ll see,” and she was gone. There was nothing to tell him that by to-morrow she thought to catch Marcus Wray red-handed, and so would never fear him any more. Her heart was lighter than for many a day as she locked away the little blue-green beetle that Cylmer had forgotten. The diamond ring she hid away with it. Never till the owner of his scarab was found would she dare to put it on. And, oh! would it be to-morrow?