“Yes, Judy sent the wire,” he said.. “But give her so much credit, she didn’t know that I intended--this. She only knew that I wanted another chance of seeing you alone--of asking you to be my wife, and I told her that you wouldn’t come up to the bungalow unless you believed that she would be there too. I didn’t think you’d trust yourself alone with me again--after that afternoon at the inn”--with blunt candour. “No. I shouldn’t have done.” “So you see I had to think of something--some way. And it was you yourself who suggested this method.” “I?”--incredulously. “Yes. Don’t you remember what you told me that day I drove you hack from Dartmoor ‘_A woman’s happiness depends upon her reputation_.’” She looked at him quickly, recalling the scattered details of that afternoon--Burke’s gibes at what he believed to be her fear of gossiping tongues and her own answer to his taunts: “No woman can afford to ignore scandal.” And then, following upon that, his sudden, curious absorption in his own thoughts. The remembrance of it all was like a torchlight flashed into a dark place, illuminating what had been hidden and inscrutable. She spoke swiftly. “And it was then--that afternoon--you thought of this?” He bent his head. “Yes,” he acknowledged. Jean was silent. It was all clear now--penetratingly so. “And the Holfords? Are there any such people?” she asked drearily. She scarcely knew what prompted her to put so purposeless and unimportant a question. Actually, she felt no interest at all in the answer. It could not make the least difference to her present circumstances. Perhaps it was a little the feeling that this trumpery process of question and answer served to postpone the inevitable moment when she must face the situation in which she found herself--face it in its simple crudeness, denuded of unessential whys and wherefores. “Oh, yes, the Holfords are quite real,” answered Burke. “And so is the plan for an expedition to one of the tors by moonlight. Only it will be carried out to-morrow night instead of to-night. To-night is for the settlement between you and me.” The strained expression of utter, shocked incredulity was gradually leaving Jean’s face. The unreal was becoming real, and she knew now what she was up against; the hard, reckless quality of Burke’s voice left her no illusions. “Geoffrey,” she said quietly, “you won’t really do this thing?” If she had hoped to move him by a simple, straightforward appeal to the best that might be in him, she failed completely. For the moment, all that was good in him, anything chivalrous which the helplessness of her womanhood might have invoked, was in abeyance. He was mere primitive man, who had succeeded in carrying off the woman he meant to mate and was prepared to hold her at all costs. “I told you I would compel you,” he said doggedly. “That I would let nothing in the world stand between you and me. And I meant every word I said. You’ve no way out now--except marriage with me.”