"What have I done?" she asked. "Fallen in love with Geoffrey Ravenspur." The words came like a blow. Marion staggered under them. "I deny it," she said weakly. "It is false." "It is true, you idiot. You are blushing like a rose. And to-night, when that fiend Tchigorsky played that fool's trick upon us you had no eyes for any one but Geoffrey. Frightened as I was, I could see that. Your looks betrayed you. What are you going to do about it?" Marion shook her head sadly. Never had any one at Ravenspur ever seen her look so forlorn and dejected as she did at this moment. "I don't know," she said hopelessly. "I know what I ought to do. I ought to kill you and throw myself into the sea afterwards. Why should I go on leading my present life? Why should I shield you? What are you? What are you to me?" "You dare ask me that question?" "Oh! I dare anything in my present mood. Still, I am in your power. You have only to say the word and it is done." "Then why do you take every means of thwarting me?" Marion rose and crossed over to the door. Her eyes were shining. There was a certain restless motion of her hands. "Take care," she whispered. "Don't drive me too far. Oh, if I could only live the last four years of my life over again!" CHAPTER XXX A LEAF FROM THE PAST Ralph Ravenspur, with Tchigorsky and Geoffrey, sat smoking in the billiard room until Vera came in to say good-night and drive them off to bed. As they were about to separate at the head of the stairs Ralph gave them a sign to follow him. "Come to my room for half an hour," he said. The others complied. Tchigorsky slipped away for a while, and on his return he laid the end of a long silk thread on the white table cover. "Part of a little scheme," he said. "This is one end of the silk thread. Where the other end is matters nothing for the present. Ralph, everybody has retired?" "Everybody," Ralph replied as he filled his pipe. "I fancy you said that no servants sleep in the house." "They have not done so for a long time," Geoffrey explained. "Not that we entertain the least suspicion of any of them. We merely made the change for safety's sake." Tchigorsky nodded his approval. He arranged the silk thread neatly on the table, coiling the end round a daisy pattern worked into the damask cloth. "For Mrs. May's benefit?" Geoffrey asked. "Precisely," Tchigorsky said gravely. "I take a great interest in her." Geoffrey smoked a whole cigarette before he spoke again. "By the way," he exclaimed, "who and what is Mrs. May?" "The devil fairly disguised," Ralph croaked. "A beautiful Mephistopheles, a fascinating Beelzebub, a dark-eyed fiend, a--a----" He pulled up choking with all-consuming rage. His arm was sawing the air as if feeling for the white throat of his lovely foe. "Steady, there," Tchigorsky muttered. "Steady, Ralph, my friend. Shall we enlighten Master Geoffrey a little as to the kind of woman she is?" Ralph nodded over his pipe.