"Take them," he whispered fiercely--"take them back, man, or it will be too late. You will make me what you think." Myra would have stayed even then, in spite of Edie's hands trying to drag her away; but, as she turned yearningly to Stratton, he shrank away with such a despairing look of horror that she yielded herself to Guest's strong arm, and suffered him to lead her back, half insensible, to the carriage, into a corner of which she sank with a low moan, while all the way home the beat of the horses feet and the rattle of the wheels upon the pavement seemed to form themselves with terrible iteration into the words she had heard fall from Stratton's lips, and she shuddered as now, for the first time, she gave them with a terrible significance: "My punishment is greater than I can bear." She grew more and more prostrate as they neared home, and was so weak that she could hardly walk up the steps into the hall, but she recovered a little, and, holding tightly by Guest's and Edie's arms, ascended slowly to the drawing room, to find that the butler had hurried up before them, and that Sir Mark had returned, and was coming to meet them on the landing, startled by the man's words: "Miss Myra has come home, sir, very ill." The admiral would have sent off for medical help, but Myra insisted that she was better; and as she began to recover herself the old man asked eagerly: "Where was it--at a theatre?" A dead silence fell upon the group, and Guest gave Edie a look of agony as the thought occurred to him: "He will forbid me his house now." "Well," cried Sir Mark testily, for he had reached home early consequent upon a few monitory twinges, which he dare not slight, "are you all deaf?" "I will tell you, dear," said Myra, taking her father's hand and pressing it beneath her cheek. "Don't be angry with anybody but me, and try and remember that I am no longer a girl, but a suffering woman, full of grief and pain." "My poor darling!" he whispered, bending down to kiss her. "But tell me--were you taken ill at the theatre? Why, what does it mean?" "I could bear it no longer, father," said Myra slowly. "I have been to see Malcolm Stratton." "What?" "To ask him to explain." "You--you have been to see that scoundrel--that--" "Hush, dear! He was to have been my husband." "And you--you actually went to see him--at his rooms?" "Yes." Sir Mark wiped his forehead, and looked fiercely from one to the other, as if hardly believing his child's avowal to be true. "I could not go on like this. It was killing me, dear." "And--and you asked him to explain his cursed conduct?" "I asked him to explain." "And--and--what--what?" panted the old man furiously.