"Oh, I know I'm wrong, I know you're hating me, despising me for telling you all this, but it's too much for me. I can't bear it alone any longer. It's driving me mad, Toni, mad, do you hear? At night I dream of you--sometimes I dream that you've been kind to me, that I've kissed you--kissed your little mouth, held you in my arms ... and then I wake and know you're another man's wife, and it makes the blood rush to my head and I see red, Toni, red...." Something in his excitement warned the girl that she must soothe him. "Hush, Leonard." In that moment she reverted to the days of their early friendship. "Don't speak so wildly. You--you frighten me." He passed his hand over his brow, and when he spoke his voice was a shade quieter. "I wouldn't frighten you for the world, Toni, you know that. I love you far too well ... oh, Toni, is it quite hopeless! Isn't there a glimmer of pity in your heart for me? Won't you ever give me a thought...." "Leonard, how can I?" She spoke in a low voice, all Eva's horrid suggestions rushing over her in a flood. "I'm married; I can't ever be anything to you now." "Oh, I know you're married." He caught his breath in a gasp. "But still--oh, Toni, you wouldn't come away with me, would you? I've got some money now. I'd be able to give you things, and I'd work for you till I died...." At another moment Toni would have found occasion to wonder at his temerity in making the suggestion. She did not know how his imagination, fired by Eva's insinuations, played about the figure of Owen Rose's wife as the unloved victim of a man's callousness; and although she could see that Leonard Dowson was in deadly earnest, she had no conception of the sincerity of his belief that she had been wronged, trapped into marriage by a man who cared little for her, and neglected her openly. Such was the manner in which the situation had been presented to Dowson by Eva Herrick; and in his genuine acceptance of her story lay Dowson's best excuse for his wild plan. "I ... I couldn't come away with you, Leonard." In spite of her desire to set Owen free, Toni's whole soul revolted at the idea of such treachery. "I'm married, you know, and I couldn't leave my husband." "Why not?" in his despair the young man pressed still nearer, and again Jock uttered a warning growl. "I know you are married, but still--you're not happy--your husband isn't, either, by what I hear. You'd be wronging nobody--you've no children to consider"--in some ways Mr. Dowson was as primitive as Toni--"if you had, it would be different, but you've only yourself to think about. This life doesn't suit you, Toni. It cramps you, worries you. Oh, I heard all about that Badminton Club affair, and everyone knows you don't hit it off with the bigwigs of the neighbourhood." "Who told you that?" For a moment Dowson quailed before her tone; but he rallied bravely.