a hateful reflection on my dead father, and the whole thing would have led to an intolerable scandal.  Yet it seemed as though this could be avoided in no other way but by marrying my persecutor, a man whom I had reason to hate and who had shown himself to be such an unchivalrous bully.  About this time—­that is shortly before the Hunt Ball—­rumours had got about the neighbourhood that I was going to marry Lord Painswick.  He was certainly paying me a good deal of attention, and I fancy Dick would have liked the match, but I could not bring myself to care for Painswick, and indeed his courtship only added to my other worries.

“But Clement Henshaw heard the rumour and it had naturally the effect of rousing his wretched pursuit of me to greater activity.  He vowed with brutal vehemence that I should not marry Painswick, and declared that when our engagement was announced he would tell him the story he had against me.  That in itself did not trouble me much since I had no intention of marrying Painswick; still the man’s relentless persecution was getting more than I could bear.

“I now come to the night of the Hunt Ball.  For some days previously I had seen or heard nothing of Henshaw, and had even begun to hope that something might have happened to make the man abandon his line of conduct.  I might have known him better.  To my intense annoyance and dismay I saw him come into the ballroom with all the hateful assurance that was so familiar to me.  I could not well escape, seeing that I was acting as hostess.  For a while he, beyond a formal greeting, let me alone.  But I felt what was surely coming, and it was almost a relief when he took an opportunity of asking for a dance.

“He must have seen the hate in my eyes as in my hesitation they met his, for he said with a forced laugh, ’You need not do violence to your feelings by dancing with me, Miss Morriston, if you don’t care to, but there is something I must say to you.  Let us come out of the crowd to where we shall not be overheard.’

“I had never felt so madly furious with the man as at that moment; and it was with a reckless desire to tell him in strong language my opinion of his tactics, to insult him, if that were possible, to declare that I would die rather than yield to him, that I led the way to the tower.  My desire to get out of the crowd was even greater than his, for a mad hope possessed me that in some desperate way I might bring our relations to a final issue.

“We went into the sitting-out room.  ‘Some one will be coming in here,’ he objected.  ‘Is there a room upstairs where we can talk?’

“‘There is a room up there,’ I answered, as steadily as my indignation would let me, and unheeding the idea of compromising myself I went up the dark staircase in front of him.  Naturally the idea that our stormy interview was to have a witness would have been the last thing to enter my mind; it never occurred to me to make sure no one was already in the room when we entered it.