"May I inquire what you propose to do?" Smyth asked presently--"warn your mature commercial admirer and compel me, in self-protection, to blast his reputation, or hold your tongue like a reasonable woman?" They had reached the end of the tarred palings. Upon the left the quaintly irregular bow-windowed rose-and-ivy-covered houses of Barnes Terrace--no two of them alike in height or in architecture--fronted the road. Upon the right was the river, dull-coloured and wind-tormented. A cargo of bricks, supplying a strong note of red in the otherwise mournful landscape, was being unloaded from a barge; carts backed down the slip to within easy distance of the broad bulwarkless deck, horses shivering as they stood knee-deep in the water. The bricks grated together when the men, handling them, tossed them across. With long-drawn thunderous roar and shriek, a train, heading from Kew Station, rushed across the latticed iron-built railway bridge. Poppy waited, watching the progress of it, watching the unloading of the barge. The one perfectly pure and beautiful gift which life had given her was utterly profaned, so it seemed to her; that which she held dearest and best hopelessly entangled with that which to her was most degrading and abhorrent. And what to do? To be silent was to be disloyal. To speak was to expose Dominic Iglesias to dishonour and disgust far deeper than that which loss of money could inflict. Poppy weighed and balanced, clear that her thought must be wholly for him, not letting anger sway her judgment. Of two evils she must choose that which, for him, was least. "I will not give you away. I will say nothing," she said at last. "You swear you will not?" "Yes, I swear," Poppy said. "I want it in writing." "Very well, you shall have it in writing, witnessed if you like," she answered. "The precious document shall be posted to you to-night. Now are you satisfied, you contemptible animal? Have you humbled me enough?" But Smyth came close to her, pushing his face into hers. He was shaking with excitement, hysterical with mingled fear and relief. "I am not ungenerous, my dear girl," he whispered. "I am willing to condone the past--to take you back, to acknowledge you as my wife and let you share my success. There is a part in the new play which might have been written for you. You could become world-famous in it. I am not ungenerous, I am willing to make matters up." "Do you want me to murder you, after all?" Poppy asked. "If you try me much further, I tell you plainly, I can't answer for myself. Therefore, as you value your life, let me alone. Get out of my sight." CHAPTER XXVII