He walked back to the nearest station, angry beyond measure, and paced the platform for an hour, waiting for the train for Eastleigh, and with half a mind to throw himself under the first express that came shrieking by. Yet that were basest surrender. "She is possessed by a devil of obstinacy," he told himself. "But the stronger devil within me shall master her." * * * * * While the more fiery and arrogant of Suzette's lovers was raging against her coldness, resolved to bear down all opposing forces, to ride roughshod over every obstacle, her gentler and more conscientious lover was hiding his grief in the quiet of that level and unromantic land on which his eyes had first opened. No tempest had raged when Allan was born. He had entered life amidst no grandeurs of mountain and glacier, arrested avalanche and roaring torrent. An English home--English to intensity--had been his cradle; a mild, even-tempered mother, a father in whom a gentle melancholy was the prevailing characteristic. Growing up under such home-influences, Allan Carew had something of womanly gentleness interwoven with the strong fibre of a fine manly nature. He had the womanly capacity to suffer in silence, to submit to Fate, and to take a very humble place at the banquet of life. Well, he was not destined to be happy. She had never loved him--never. He had won her by sheer persistency; he had imposed upon her yielding nature, upon the amiability which makes it so hard for some women to say no. She had always been friendly and kind and sweet, but the signs and tokens of passionate love had been wanting. If she would have been content to marry him upon those friendly terms, content to forego the glamour of romantic love, all might have been well. Love would have followed marriage in the quiet years of domestic life. The watchful kindnesses of an adoring husband must have won her heart. Yes, but for Geoffrey Wornock's appearance on the scene, all might have been well. Suzette would have married Allan, and the years would have ripened friendship into love. Geoffrey's was the fatal influence. Contrast with that fiery nature had made Allan seem a dullard.