"And so you are ready to believe any calumny," said Max. His hands pressed upon her; his red brows were drawn together. At any other moment she would have deemed him formidable, but she was beyond fear just then. "If you would only tell me what to believe--" she said. "And if I won't?" He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "If I demand your trust on this point--as I have a right to demand it on every point--what then? Are you going to give me everything except that?" She shook her head. "No, Max." "What do you mean?" he demanded. She answered him steadily enough. "I mean that unless you can tell me the truth--the truth, Max," there was a piteous touch in her repetition of the words--"I can never give you--anything." "Meaning you won't marry me?" he said. Steadily she answered him. "Yes, I mean just that." He continued to hold her before him. His face grew harder, grimmer than before. "And you think I will suffer myself to be thrown over?" he said. That pierced her lethargy, quickened her to resistance. "I think you have no choice," she said. Max's jaw set itself like an iron clamp. "There you show your absolute ignorance," he said, "of me--and of yourself." "You couldn't hold me against my will," she said quickly. "Could I not?" said Max. Something of fear crept about her heart, hastening its beat. But she faced him unflinching. "No," she said. He was silent; but she had an inexplicable feeling that the green eyes were drawing her gradually, mercilessly, against her will. Yet she resisted them, summoning all her strength. And then she became aware that his hold had tightened and grown close. She awoke to the fact very suddenly, as one coming out of a trance, and swiftly, nervously, she sought to free herself. Instantly his arms were about her. He gathered her to him with a force that compelled. He crushed her lips with his own in kisses so fierce and so passionate that she winced from them in actual pain, not sparing her till she sank in his arms, spent, unresisting, crying against his shoulder. He made no attempt to comfort her; his hold was sustaining, but grimly devoid of all tenderness. Later she knew that he had fought a desperate battle for her happiness and his own, and it was no moment for relaxation. He spoke to her at last, curtly, over her bowed head, "And you think--you dare to think--that I have ever loved another woman." "I don't know what to think," she whispered, hiding her face lower on his breast. "Then think this," he said, and there was a ring of iron in his voice, "that for no slander whatever will I hold myself answerable, either to you or to anyone else. I shall not defend myself from it. I shall not deny it. And because of it I will not suffer myself to be jilted. Is that enough?" He spoke with indomitable resolution, but there must have been some yielding quality in the last words, for she suddenly found strength to lift her head again and turn her face up to his.