She took the seat he indicated. He trimmed the fire and left the poker in the coals. Then from his pocket he took a ball of silvered glass as large as an orange, and began to toss it in his hands. She stared at it in silence for half a minute. Then the unmistakable laugh of Jenny rang out. "So you really wanted to see me, did you?" she cried. "I knew you would some time." "Yes," was his reply. "You may be sure I wanted to see you pretty badly before I'd take the risk of doing something that may be bad for Alice." "Oh, it's still Alice, is it?" Jenny responded, pouting. "I hoped you'd got more sense by this time. Honest, now," she continued, leaning forward persuasively, "don't you think you'd like me best? The trouble is, you think you're tied to her, and you don't dare do what you want to. I'd hate to be such a coward!" He looked at the beautiful creature bending toward him, and he could not but acknowledge in his heart that she was physically more attractive than Alice, that she stirred in him a fever of the blood which he had never known when with the other. All the attraction which had drawn him to Alice was there, save for certain spiritual qualities, and added was a new charm which he felt keenly. He could not define to himself clearly, moreover, what right or ground he had for objecting to this form of the personality of his betrothed, to this potential Alice, who in certain ways moved him more than the Alice he had known so long. He had only a dogged instinct to guide him, an unescapable inner conviction that the normal consciousness of the girl had inalienable rights which manhood and honor called upon him to defend. In part this was the feeling natural to a physician, but more it was the Puritan loyalty to an idea of justice. The more he felt himself stirred by the fascination of Jenny, the more strongly his sense of right urged him to end, if possible, this frightful possession forever. Both for himself and for Alice, he was resolute now to go to any extreme. "You are at liberty to put it any way you please," he responded to her taunt, with grave courtesy. "I called you to tell you that I am going to marry Alice to-morrow, and that I will not have her personality interfered with any more." "Oh, you won't? How are you going to help it?" He looked at her eyes sparkling with mischievous defiance, at her red lips pouted in saucy insolence, and he wavered. Then in the instant revulsion from this weakness he turned to the fire and took from the coals the glowing poker. "That is how I mean to help it," he said. She shrank and turned pale; but she did not yield. "You can't fool me like that," she said. "You would n't really hurt the body of that precious Alice of yours. You can't burn me without her being burned too." "She had better be burned than to be under the control of a little devil like you."