“But she never need know!  She never shall know!” There was a note of desperation in Dacre’s rejoinder.  “You have only got to hush it up, and it will die a natural death.  That she-devil will never take the trouble to follow me out here.  Why should she?  She knows very well that she has no claim whatever upon me.  Stella is the only woman who has any claim upon me now.”

“You are right.”  Grimly Monck took him up.  “And her claim is the claim of an honourable woman to honourable treatment.  And so far as lies in your power and mine, she shall have it.  That is why you will do this thing—­disappear to-night, go out of her life for good, and let her think you dead.  I will undertake then that the truth shall never reach her.  She will be safe.  But there can be no middle course.  She shall not be exposed to the damnable risk of finding herself stranded.”

He ceased to speak, and in the moonlight their eyes met as the eyes of men who grip together in a death-struggle.

The silence between them was more terrible than words.  It held unutterable things.

Dacre spoke at last, his voice low and hoarse.  “I can’t do it.  There is too much involved.  Besides, it wouldn’t really help.  She would come to know inevitably.”

“She will never know.”  Inexorably came the answer, spoken with pitiless insistence.  “As to ways and means, I have provided for them.  It won’t be difficult in this wilderness to cover your tracks.  When the news has gone forth that you are dead, no one will look for you.”

A hard shiver went through Dacre.  His hands clenched.  He was as a man in the presence of his executioner.  The paralysing spell was upon him again, constricting as a rope about his neck.  But sacrifice was no part of his nature.  With despair at his heart, he yet made a desperate bid for freedom.

“The whole business is outrageous!” he said.  “It is out of the question.  I refuse to do it.  Matters have gone too far.  To all intents and purposes, Stella is my wife, and I’m damned if any one shall come between us.  You may do your worst!  I refuse.”

Defiance was his only weapon, and he hurled it with all his strength; but the moment he had done so, he realized the hopelessness of the venture.  Monck made a single, swift movement, and in a moment the moonlight glinted upon the polished muzzle of a Service revolver.  He spoke, briefly, with iron coldness.

“The choice is yours.  Only—­if you refuse to give her—­the sanctuary of widowhood—­I will!  After all it would be the safest way for all concerned.”

Dacre went back a pace.  “Going to murder me, what?” he said.

Monck’s teeth gleamed in a terrible smile.  “You need not—­refuse,” he said.

“True!” Dacre was looking him full in the eyes with more of curiosity than apprehension.  “And—­as you have foreseen—­I shall not refuse under those circumstances.  It would have saved time if you had put it in that light before.”