“It’s that fellow Hyde!” Ronnie said, looking at her rather doubtfully.  “You don’t mind?”

Her face fell, but he did not wait for her reply.  He stepped across to the window, and admitted the visitor.

Hyde sauntered in with a casual air.

He came across to her, smiling in the way she loathed, and almost before she realized it he had her hand in a tight, impressive grip, and his pale eyes were gazing full into hers.

“You look as fresh as an English rose,” was his deliberate greeting.

Hope freed her hand with a slight, involuntary gesture of disgust.  Till the moment of seeing him again she had almost forgotten how utterly objectionable he was.

“I am quite well,” she said coldly.  “I think I shall go to bed, Ronnie.  I’m tired.”

Ronnie was pouring some whisky into a glass.  She noticed that his hand was very shaky.

“All right,” he said, not looking at her.

“You’re not going to desert us already?” said Hyde; still, as she felt, mocking her with his smile.  “It will be dark, indeed, when Hope is withdrawn.”

He went to the door, but paused with his hand upon it.  She looked at him with the wild shrinking of a trapped creature in her eyes.

“Never mind,” he laughed softly; “I am very tenacious.  Even now—­you will scarcely believe it—­I still have—­Hope!”

He opened the door with the words, and, as she passed through in unbroken silence, her face as white as marble, there was something in his words, something of self-assured power, almost of menace, that struck upon her like a breath of evil.  She would have stayed and defied him had she dared.  But somehow, inexplicably, she was afraid.

VII

THE SCRAPE

Very late that night there came a low knock at Hope’s door.  She was lying awake, and she instantly started up on her elbow.

“Who is it?” she called.

The door opened softly, and Ronnie answered her.

“I thought you would like to say good-night, Hope,” he said.

“Oh, come in, dear!” Hope sat up eagerly.  She had not expected this attention from Ronnie.  “I’m wide awake.  I’m so glad you came!”

He slipped into the room, and, reaching her, bent to kiss her; then, as she clung closely to him, he sat down on the edge of her bed.

“I’m sorry Hyde annoyed you,” he said.

She leaned her head against him, and was silent.

“It’ll be a good thing for you when you’re married,” Ronnie went on presently.  “Baring will take better care of you than I do.”

Something in his tone went straight to her heart.  Her clinging arms tightened, but still she was silent.  For what he said was unanswerable.

When he spoke again, she felt it was with an effort.