"No, no; you are not going yet," he said, speaking angrily. "What sort of a man do you take me for, that you play with me like this?" "Major Rockley, will you loose my arm?" "Claire Denville, will you promise to meet me to-night where I will name?" "I am a defenceless woman, sir, and this is an insult--an outrage. Will you loose my arm?" "You are a cruel coquette," he cried passionately. "Is this your treatment, after the months of glances you have given me to lure me on?" "Will you loose my arm, sir?" "Will you be a sensible girl?" he whispered. "How can you be so absurd? Look about you: we are too far off for anyone to see who we are, and if they could see us, why should we care? What is the world to us? Come, Claire, my darling." He tried to draw her towards him, but she struggled to get free and reach the stile in the tall hedge that separated them from the bare downs beyond. The tears of rage and indignation were in Claire's eyes as she felt her helplessness, and saw how thoroughly she was in Rockley's power. There seemed to be nothing she could do but scream for help, and from that she shrank. Turning suddenly upon him, with her eyes flashing, she exclaimed: "Major Rockley! as a gentleman I ask you to cease this cowardly pursuit." "Claire Denville, as the woman I adore and have set my mind to win, I ask you to cease this silly heroic nonsense. My dear child, is it to make terms?" She snatched her hand by an angry movement from his grasp, and reached the stile; but he was too quick for her, catching her and drawing her back to clasp her in his arms. "You shall not say I wasted my opportunity," he whispered. "If I am to be punished by you, it shall be for something more than words. This kiss is to be the first of millions that you shall pay me back, and-- Curse the fellow!" There was a quick step, a hand was laid on the stile, and Richard Linnell vaulted over, white with jealous anger. For, coming along the downs, he had seen Claire cross the stile, followed by Rockley, and, half mad with rage, he had gazed at them for a moment or two, and then, feeling that all was over, and that there was no more love for him in the world, since the woman he had worshipped could be so light as to make appointments with the greatest libertine in the town, he walked straight back for the parade. It was all plain enough; there had been an understanding between Claire and the Major, and hence that serenade. But for the horrible accident that night Claire would have come to the window and answered to the musical call. What a boyish, childish idiot he had been: dreaming always of a vain, weak, frivolous woman, whom he had in his blind idolatry endowed with all the beauties and virtues of her sex. "Well," he said with a scornful laugh, "I ought to have known how artificial she would be. Like father, like daughter; but it is cruel, cruel work." He laughed bitterly.