"Yes, of course. That's where I'm going to take you. We'll go to-night. There's a train we----" "I can't possibly go with you!" she cried. "Don't you see, to do that would cause the very scandal we've all sacrificed so much to prevent?" "I do see," said Tony. "But you said yourself to-day that 'everything had changed.' We don't need to be afraid of scandal any more. It can't hurt us now. It will do us good. Marise, I've been thinking things over, and I believe that the only way we can get that brute to free you is by deliberately making a scandal. All the trouble comes from your throwing yourself at the fellow's head in such a hurry. If you'd waited, OEnone dying when she did would have made your marriage useless. You and I would both have been free----" "We were both free before you decided you'd have to marry OEnone," broke in Marise. "That was different. I was in debt and hadn't a penny to play with. I couldn't live on you. Now my debts are paid, and though they've not left me a very rich man, I've got something to go on with----" "You have, because Jack Garth won't take your money." "Oh, wouldn't he, if he could get it?" "No!" "Well, again, there'd be no question of money at present between him and me if you'd waited, and hadn't tangled yourself up in this beastly knot to spite me. Now I'll have to get you out of the tangle as best I can. You can't do it yourself, and Garth will hang on to you for the same motive you had--spite, if nothing more. Go with me to-night. Be brave. _Make_ a scandal. Then for the sake of that mother of his--and for his pride if he has any, if not, for the appearance of it--he'll free you." Marise was very pale. "A little while ago," she said, "you spoke of Zélie Marks being here to give--an excuse for divorce." "Yes. That seems the likely thing. Garth probably arranged it when he expected money from me, to make divorce worth his while. Now we've had a row, more or less, and he knows that at best he can't get much. His cry is 'all or nothing.' He won't use Miss Marks as a pretext." "I tell you he never intended to accept money!" insisted Marise. "That's a new opinion of yours, isn't it?" "I never _felt_ he would touch it. But I didn't know surely. Now I do." "I wonder how?" "I do--that's all." "Well, by Jove; I never expected to hear you taking Garth's part against me!" Tony exploded. "I'm not doing that," Marise said. "We've all been horrid and detestable in this business, you and I, and even poor Mums--for my sake----" "What about Garth? Is he on a higher plane?" "Yes, he _is_!" exclaimed the girl. "He loved me once. He wanted to marry me then--just for love. How he felt afterwards--or how he feels now--I don't know. But--he's not a _beast_." "And I am?" "Oh, I put myself and Mums in the same box with you. I'm saying nothing of you I don't say of ourselves."