"This is the kind of unwholesome rot he tries to poison your mind with." He opened the cover, and read the verse on the fly-leaf; next moment he flung the book to the farther end of the room. "That is enough," he said. "Listen to me! If you don't promise me this instant never to speak to the man again, I'll--I'll kill you." Coventry was beside himself with passion, for it seemed to him that his honour, his home, his name was besmirched. He felt humiliated, wronged; and the primitive sense of outraged possession had him in its grip. Nothing could ever be the same again between his wife and himself. It was all he could do not to strike her as she stood there, white, and fair, and weak, at his mercy, yet still with a frightened defiance in her childish blue eyes. There followed a tense pause, as with set teeth he strove to master his passion, holding his clenched hands down on the table before him.... And suddenly the silence outside was broken by the sound of wheels and the sharp trotting of a horse's hoofs that turned into the adjoining compound and ceased. Instinctively Rafella turned her head and listened. Mr. Kennard had come home from the ball. The knowledge that he was at hand gave her a feeling of partial security. That, together with indignation and resentment, kept her firm in her resolve not to be browbeaten into a promise that could only be an admission of guilt. She could not perceive that morally she had erred, though actually she was innocent of wrongdoing. It was precisely what her husband could not perceive either; to him there was little difference. "Are you going to promise?" he asked, with menace in his voice. She put up her hands as though to shield herself from violence. "Are you going to promise?" he said again, and moved a little nearer. Then her courage failed her. She was afraid of George, afraid of the look on his face that reminded her of a savage animal--afraid of his threats, and his voice, and his presence. She turned and ran to the door that had been bolted by him as they entered. He followed her. She screamed, stretching her white arms up to the bolt, dragging it down. Next moment she was outside, running in silent terror towards the house in the next compound. The lightly clad figure sped like a ghost through the dim light of the coming dawn, and stumbled through the gap in the low mud boundary, leaving George Coventry standing on the threshold of his house as though he had been turned to stone. Motionless he stood; then he laughed like a drunken man, and reeled back into the room that smelt of matting and lamp-oil and--violets. * * * * *