"No," she replied gently, "I cannot love you, Doctor Nestley--even if I did, I could hardly respond to your passion after so short an acquaintance; come, doctor, you have been worn out by your nightly attendance on my cousin, you are not well and speak without thinking, forget the words you have spoken and let things be as they were." It was a gracious thing of her to say, for, in spite of his evident earnestness, she felt indignant at the manner in which he had spoken to her. "Things can never be as they were," he replied dully. "I have seen you and that has changed my whole life--is there no chance?" "There is no chance," she replied coldly, and turned away to intimate the interview was over. Even as she did so, he sprang forward with a fierce light in his eyes. "You love another," he hissed out between his clenched teeth. Una turned on him in a dignified way with her eyes blazing with anger. "How dare you speak to me in this manner?" she said wrathfully. "Do not try my patience too far--I have given you an answer to the mad words you spoke--now go." She pointed to the door with a commanding gesture and the young man drooping his head on his breast, moved towards it. "You don't know what you are doing," he said in a dreary voice. "You are destroying my life; whatever evils now drag me down, it will be your fault." "A cowardly speech," she said in a clear, scornful voice; "because you cannot get the toy you long for you speak like a child. I have nothing to do with your life, if you yield to evil it will be through your own weak will, not through any fault of mine--not a word," she went on as he was about to speak; "leave me at once and I will try and forget what you have said." He tried to look her in the face, but seeing her standing tall and straight as a young Greek maiden, with nothing but scorn and condemnation in her eyes, he turned away with a sigh, and letting his head fall on his breast walked slowly out of the room, careless of what happened to him now that he had placed all his chances on the casting of a die--and lost. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FALL OF MAN. Who stands so high that he may never fall, Who lies so low that he may never rise? The lowliest may one day win life's prize, The highest thro' temptation lose his all. Beaumont was a man who neglected no chance, however small, by which he could benefit himself; consequently thinking if he discovered Squire Garsworth's secret it might prove of use to him, he determined to find out all about it. He knew perfectly well that no power of persuasion would lead the madman to divulge his thoughts, so the only chance of discovering anything was to reduce him to a mere automaton, perfectly powerless in his hands. This he hoped to do by means of hypnotism, of which curious process he knew a good deal.