"What can he do to you?" Sylvia demanded, in scornful displeasure. "The worst he can do is to kill you, and then you'd have died because you wouldn't surrender. Haven't you read about martyrs?" "Of course I've read about martyrs," said Arthur, rather querulously. "But reading about martyrs is very different from being a martyr yourself. You seem to think everybody can be anything you happen to read about. You wouldn't care to be a martyr, Sylvia." "That's just where you're wrong," she loftily declared. "I'd much sooner be a martyr than a coward." Arthur winced at her plain speaking. "You don't care what you say," was his reproach. "No, and I don't care what I do," Sylvia agreed. "Are you coming out with me? Because if you're not, you shall never be my friend again." Arthur pulled himself together and braved Monkley's threats. On a quiet green summit he demanded her impatient kisses for a recompense; she, conscious of his weakness and against her will made fonder of him by this very weakness, kissed him less impatiently than was her wont, so that Arthur, under the inspiration of that rare caress, vowed he cared for nobody and for nothing, if she would but always treat him thus kindly. Sylvia, who was determined to make Jimmy pay for his bad behavior, invited herself to tea with Mrs. Madden; afterward, though it was cloudy and ominous, Arthur and she walked out on the Heath once more, until it rained so hard that they were driven home. It was about seven o'clock when Sylvia reached her room, her hair all tangled with moisture, her eyes and cheeks on fire with the exhilaration of that scurry through the rain. She had not stood a moment to regard herself in the glass when Monkley, following close upon her heels, shut the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. Sylvia looked round in astonishment; by a trick of candle-light his eyes gleamed for an instant, so that she felt a tremor of fear. "You've come back at last, have you?" he began in a slow voice, so deliberate and gentle in its utterance that Sylvia might not have grasped the extent of his agitation, had not one of his legs, affected by a nervous twitch, drummed upon the floor a sinister accompaniment. "You shameless little b----h, I thought I forbade you to go out with him again. You've been careering over the Heath. You've been encouraging him to make love to you. Look at your hair--it's in a regular tangle! and your cheeks--they're like fire. Well, if you can let that nancified milksop mess you about, you can put up with me. I've wanted to long enough, God knows; and this is the reward I get for leaving you alone. You give yourself to the first b----y boy that comes along." Before Sylvia had time to reply, Monkley had leaped across the room and crushed her to him. "Kiss me, damn you, kiss me! Put your arms round me."