"Henceforth I shall congratulate myself on my skill as a _raconteur_." His tone was mildly ironic. "It seemed to me--and I think I am of average intelligence and not more fanciful than most--that by that story you intended to convey, an insinuation against the reputation of a gentleman whom I do not care to hear maligned." He looked at her with smouldering eyes. He was feeling admiration for her quick, hot southern blood and resentful spirit. It was part of that splendid type of womanhood that he had determined to make his own. And that it was now displayed in defence of the man whose weakness he despised and whose personality he hated filled him with a dull, glooming fury. His lips twisted. "Maligned?" he repeated, in an accent that was a question. "That was my word," she said steadily. "You appear to attach an extraordinary importance to my tale," he retorted, with grim sarcasm. "Do you deny that there _was_ innuendo?" He smiled. "I can endure even that suspicion, since it is such a compliment to my own subtlety. May I ask, in my turn, in whose interest you so valorously take up the cudgels?" "Your story directly followed a reference to Mr. Henry Sevier's handling of a case in court here. The unexpected outcome of the trial in your tale was due to the fact that its chief character, though no one realised it, was under the influence of liquor. The implication seemed obvious--that Mr. Sevier was not himself when he conducted his defence." He shrugged his shoulders. "You are the only one who has drawn such a conclusion?" Her pale face blazed. "Oh, I understand! You intended the inference for me alone!" "Well?" he asked, with aggravating calmness. "Did you insinuate that, or did you not?" Her pent-up anger was tearing now at her self-control. He laughed, a short, jarring laugh. He felt an insane desire to seize that slender, unyielding body in his great arms, to rain kisses on that vivid, scornful mouth with its short upper lip, and bend or break her like a sapling to his savage will. "Suppose I did," he said stonily. "What then?" "That was a contemptible act!" The young voice cut like a whip-lash and involuntarily Craig's big fists clenched. "And if I were Mr. Sevier, I would horsewhip you!" A sound from behind them fell across the surcharged quiet. Both turned astonished faces--Echo's quivering with feeling, Craig's set and stormy--upon the man whose name had just been spoken. Neither had heard his step as he came quickly along the grassy path, nor had Sevier guessed the situation till those pregnant sentences sent the blood from his heart. He had thought the secret of his failure unsuspected. The realisation now that one, at least, had guessed the truth had been instantly swallowed up in the bitter knowledge that it had fallen to her--the one woman in the world--to defend him, who was undeserving!