If only the fellow might be knocked over by a taxi and killed, there would be the perfect solution! But even that ought not to happen just yet. It wouldn't do for Marise to be known as a widow before he, Severance, could bring OEnone to America as a bride. The celebrated Miss Sorel might as well never have been married at all, so far as old Constantine Ionides was concerned. There were two faintly glimmering spots in the general blackness of things. _Bright_ spots they hardly deserved to be called! Such as they were, one was the fact that Garth--despite his bluff--was unlikely to sacrifice all hope of the million by making forbidden love to Marise. The other gleam was: even if Garth did play the fool as well as the cad, Marise had asserted up to the last moment that she could take care of herself. Severance had reason to believe that she could. If she'd not had a cool little head, and a high opinion of her own value, the favourite actress would not have attained the position she held. "Lots of chaps had been after her," including Tony Severance: men of title, men with money, men of genius, men of charm, and she had held her own with them all, forcing their respect. Well, there wasn't much chance for a bullying brute of Garth's stamp, to get the best of a girl like that! So Severance consoled himself, after his decision at the theatre that nothing would be gained by attempting to "rescue" Marise from Garth. After leaving her--bidding her good-bye for long and anxious weeks--he could not resist 'phoning Mrs. Sorel at the Plaza, though Marise had told him that Mums was bowled over by a sick headache. He rang the poor lady up--literally up!--and discussed the situation with her, not daring to call for fear of detectives set upon him by cable from London. The poor lady, dragged out of bed, was sympathetic and soothing. Everything was "perfectly all right," she assured him. She would watch over Marise for his sake as well as her own. Marise would watch over herself, too! And she--Mary Sorel--would write or cable Tony to his club twice or three times a week. "I'd go down to the docks and see you off to-morrow morning, dear boy, no matter at what ghastly hour you sail," Mums said, "only I don't think it would be wise, do you?" No, Tony didn't. But she might send him a note by messenger to the ship, with all the latest news. She would do that without fail, Mary promised; and so at last hung up the receiver with a sigh which would have frightened Severance had it reached him on the wire. Mums was not as calm about the future as she had tried to make her "dear boy" think! Though she had been lying down, she crawled off the bed again, and put on a smart tea-gown before it was time for her daughter to come home. She had little doubt that the Beast would be with Marise; and her own attempt at "frightfulness" having failed against his armour of brutality, she intended to try diplomacy in the next encounter.