Iris had listened to his words with a look of intense horror gradually creeping into the blue depths of her wide, dilated eyes. She did understand his plan, probably more thoroughly than he had intended her to do. She had read repeatedly of the fashionable gambling dens to which men were lured by the beauty of some fair woman who was employed for no other purpose than to tempt them hither. She faced Charles Broughton suddenly, with a flash of defiance in her great, lustrous eyes. “I shall not remain in this house; I shall not do what you ask of me. If you were poor--though you were guilty of any sin--I would work for you; yes, beg for you, I think, willingly, but to live in luxury, as a decoy for gamblers, this I cannot and shall not do, nor can you compel me to do so. Let me go away; I ask nothing from you; I never wish to see your face again.” She made a step toward the door as she ceased speaking, but Broughton placed himself before it, laughing mockingly. “Not so fast, my dear,” he said, with a sneer. “I have a few words more to say to you, before you take your departure. I shall not try to detain you here by force, but there is one thing I would like you to remember. The day is not far distant when you shall come to me and beg for a shelter under the roof you now despise. Go, now, if you will, but I advise you to think twice before you do so. I am not one to threaten idly, nor to forget a threat once uttered. The offer I first made you is still open to you, and----” “And I still refuse to accept it as resolutely as before. Let me go from this house, and I can trust my after fate with God. I am not afraid that He will desert me; please stand aside and let me pass.” “Very well, Miss Iris, have your own way in this matter; but remember my warning,” he said quietly, and then opened the door for her, and even preceded her to the lower hallway, and stood on the steps until she had left the house. Once in the open air, Iris felt that she could breathe more freely, and a weight seemed lifted off her heart as she turned her steps in the direction of the humble abode in which she occupied a room with Jenny Mason. At the very moment when Iris was descending the broad stone steps of the house in Lexington Avenue, a limousine was passing the door, and from the window of the vehicle a lady’s face looked out--the face of the rich widow who was Charles Broughton’s affianced wife. Clara Neville had glanced toward the house occupied by the man she loved with some vague hope of seeing his face near one of the windows, or perhaps fancying that he might recognize her car and come down to speak with her.