“So I am not to question you?” he said at last.  “You object to that?”

She winced at his tone.

“Don’t!” she said under her breath.  “Don’t hurt me more—­more than you need!”

He was silent again, grimly, interminably silent, it seemed to her.  And all the while she felt him doing battle with her, beating down her resistance, mastering her, compelling her.

“Hope!” he said at length.

She looked up at him.  Her knees were shaking under her.  Her heart was beginning to whisper that her strength was nearly spent; that she would not be able to resist much longer.

“Tell me,” he said very quietly, “this one thing only!  What is the hold that Hyde has over you?”

She shook her head.

“That is the one thing—­”

“It is the one thing that I must know,” he said sternly.

She was white to the lips.

“I can’t answer you,” she said.

“You must answer me!” He turned her quivering face up to his own.  “Do you hear me, Hope?” he said.  “I insist upon your answering me.”

He still spoke quietly, but she was suddenly aware that he was putting forth his whole strength.  It came upon her like a physical, crushing weight.  It overwhelmed her.  She hid her face with an anguished cry.  He had conquered her.

In another moment she would have yielded.  Her opposition was dead.  But abruptly, unexpectedly, there came an interruption.  Ronnie, very pale, and looking desperate, came between them.

“Look here, sir,” he said, “you—­you are going too far.  I can’t have my sister coerced in this fashion.  If she prefers to keep this matter to herself, she must do so.  You can’t force her to speak.”

Baring released Hope and turned upon him almost violently, but, seeing the unusual, if precarious, air of resolution with which Ronnie confronted him, he checked himself.  He walked to the end of the room and back before he spoke.  His features were set like a mask when he returned.

“You may be right,” he said, “though I think it would have been better for everyone if you had not interfered.  Hope, I am going.  If you cannot bring yourself to tell me the whole truth without reservation, there can be nothing further between us.  I fear that, after all, I spoke too soon.  I can enter upon no compact that is not based upon absolute confidence.”

He spoke coldly, decidedly, without a trace of feeling; and, having spoken, he went deliberately to the window.  There he stood for a few seconds with his back turned upon the room; then, as the silence remained unbroken, he quietly lifted the catch and let himself out.

In the room he left not a word was spoken for many tragic minutes.

XIII

THE CURSE OF THE VALLEY

Hope had some difficulty in persuading Ronnie to attend mess that night, though, as a matter of fact, she was longing for solitude.