No answer followed her appeal. In astonishment she repeated it, and raised her eyes to her enemy’s face. She was astounded by what she saw there. She herself had been put out, even alarmed for a minute by the imminent fate of the candle-shade; but her neighbour’s gaze was fixed on the point of peril in a set white pallor of pure terror. Never in her life had she seen such an agony of dread on any human countenance. The young man, so beautiful, so lithe, so strong, was a monstrous coward. His face was rigid with fear, his eyes staring horribly. The sight was indecent in its nude revelation of weakness. In an instant all Gundred’s courage came back to her, and at the same moment her hatred for her neighbour was mitigated by a cold ferocity of contempt. He was still evil and hateful, but now he was contemptible also. He, a man, to be so terrified of a little burning candle-shade! At that same moment the shade tilted further, caught, and flamed. Gundred was conscious that her neighbour’s hands clenched upon his chair in a convulsive jerk of fright. Calmly, firmly she reached forth her arm, and crushed the blazing paper into a blackened flake. Servants came running to sweep up the ashes, and Mr. Hoope-Arkwright confounded himself in apologies for his neglect. Gundred showed herself perfectly amiable to her host, but on her other neighbour she would have no mercy. ‘I saw it was going to catch,’ she said gently, ‘and I asked Mr.--this gentleman, to put it out. But he cannot have heard me, I think.’ She included both men in her remarks, and spoke in soft, far-reaching tones that could not escape their attention. Mr. Hoope-Arkwright made some polite rejoinder, gave her a few compliments, then went back to his dialogue with Lady Pope. Gundred, reinstated in her own self-esteem, turned to see what effect her cut had had upon the coward. Had he winced beneath the lash? Yes, evidently he had. Gundred was justly pleased. Heaven had made her the instrument of his well-merited punishment. And now he was trying to make excuses. She would listen, so as the better to slight them. She offered a coldly acquiescent air as he began to speak. ‘I am sorry,’ he said in a slow, hesitating voice, hardly yet restored to equanimity. ‘I am afraid I heard you perfectly.’ Gundred would see no courage in the confession. It was mere effrontery. ‘Yes?’ she replied. There was a pause. ‘Yes?’ repeated Gundred cruelly, demanding an answer. The young man went on, speaking with difficulty. Gundred felt a keen joy in thus dragging the coward through a confession of his cowardice. To be a man and a coward--that was not punishment enough. He should also know what a woman thought of him. ‘I ... well, the long and the short of it is, I can’t face fire,’ continued the hesitating, painful voice. ‘You would not make a good soldier--no?’ rejoined Gundred, with a pinched little smile.