She met this with her usual scornful smile. "Listen, Leander," she said. "Once before--how long since I know not--a mortal, in sport or accident, placed his ring as you have done upon the finger of a statue erected to me. I claimed fulfilment of the pledge then, as now; but a force I could not withstand was invoked against me, and I was made to give up the ring, and with it the power and rights I strove to exert. But I will not again be thwarted: no force, no being shall snatch you from me; so be not deceived. Submit, ere you excite my fierce displeasure; submit now, since in the end submit you must!" There was a dreadful force in the sonorous tones which made him shiver; a rigid inflexible will lurked in this form, with all its subtle curves and feminine grace. If goddesses really retained any power in these days, there could be no doubt that she would use hers to the full. Yet he still struggled. "I can't make you give up the ring," he said; "but no more you can't make me leave my--my establishment, and go away underground with you. I'm an Englishman, I am, and Englishmen are free, mum; p'r'aps you wasn't aware of that? I've got a will of my own, and so you'll find it!" "Poor worm!" she said pityingly (and the hairdresser hated to be addressed as a poor worm), "why oppose thy weak will to mine? Why enlist my pride against thyself; for what hast thou of thine own to render thy conquest desirable? Thou art bent upon defiance, it seems. I leave thee to reflect if such a combat can be equal. Farewell; and at my next coming let me find a change!" And the spirit of the goddess fled, as before, to the mysterious realms from which she had been so incautiously evoked, leaving Leander almost frantic with rage, superstitious terror, and baffled purposes. "I must get the ring off," he muttered, "_and_ the cloak, somehow. Oh! if I could only find out how----There was that other chap--_he_ got off; she said as much. If I could get out how he managed it, why couldn't I do the same? But who's to tell me? She won't--not if she knows it! I wonder if it's in any history. Old Freemoult would know it if it was--he's such a scholar. Why, he gave me a name for that 'airwash without having to think twice over it! I'll try and pump old Freemoult. I'll do it to-morrow, too. I'll see if I'm to be domineered over by a image out of a tea-garden. Eh? I--I don't care if she _did_ hear me!" So Leander went to his troubled pillow, full of this new resolution, which seemed to promise a way of escape. BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA VIII. "Some, when they take _Revenge_, are Desirous the party should know whence it cometh: This is the more Generous."--BACON. In the Tottenham Court Road was a certain Commercial Dining-room, where Leander occasionally took his evening meal, after the conclusion of his day's work, and where Mr. Freemoult was accustomed to take his supper, on leaving the British Museum Library.