"Is that possible?" she gasps incredulously. "You must indeed have loved me!" "I may be mad, but it is so. I love you now in your degradation, and misery, in spite of all!" The confession staggers her. "And you show it by hunting me down to destroy my happiness. You must have sought long to find me here, and now that you are successful, now that I am run to earth, what will you do?" "What do you _think?_" His face becomes fiendish. She watches his sinister smile. "I have told you what I believe you capable of--you will murder him. I know it. You have no pity! The love you boast of is swallowed up in hate." An evil flame lights his mocking eyes. "Yes, I might spring at his throat as he comes from the jungle, I might set 'Help' upon him in the dark. He is a weak man, easily unnerved. The very sight of this knife----" "Ah!" Philip has drawn a sharp blade of steel from his coat and flashed it in the moonlight, with a bitter groan. He replaces it at the sight of her terror, with something of regret in his hard smile. "What false professions!" sneers Eleanor. "You dare to speak of loving mo, when you would rob me of the man in whom all my happiness lies!" Philip winces as if suddenly recalled to facts. "Yes, your whole future was controlled by him." His words fill her with a vague misgiving, but she draws herself up proudly and replies: "It is safe in Carol's keeping." "You are sure of that?" She bows a cold assent. "Then listen, Eleanor." He speaks authoritatively. "Come here. Sit down." He points to a chair, but she sinks on the edge of the sofa, too agitated to notice her proximity to the huge mastiff. "There is need of explanation," Philip continues, never taking his eyes off her white, scared face. "It is time you understood me. You say I have 'run you to earth,' as if through this long period of separation I had been hunting you like a bloodhound, and suddenly found myself on your track. You imagine I have just discovered you." Eleanor's lips part as if to speak, but the words are choked back in her throat. "Help" stirs his head, for the first time she sees he is at her feet. "You recall," says Philip, "that small dog--a suspicious Irish terrier--you were given some time back?" "What of him? How did you know?" turning her eyes wonderingly from "Help" to Philip. "It was killed in some bushes by a wild beast, when you were riding one day with your lover." "Yes." He pauses. The mastiff rises slowly, and stretches himself, as if wearied by his day's work. Eleanor draws her skirts away from contact with his coarse hair. She sees it all at last. "Killed," she repeats, "and by your dog." Her breath comes quicker, she turns and peers through the window, as if expecting something. "There is still more," declares Philip. "That cat's-eye ring I gave you, Eleanor--where is it?" His voice pulses with suppressed force. "Carol was attacked in the jungle one night----"