“What in the name of fortune are you doing, Kitty?” cried Ashe.

She made no answer, and he approached.  Then he saw that in the centre of the pile, and propped up against some small pieces of wood, a photograph of Geoffrey Cliffe was consuming slow and dismally.  The fire had just sent a line across his cheek.  The lower limbs were already charred, and the right hand was shrivelling.

All around were letters, mostly consumed; while at the top of the pile above the culprit’s head, stuck in a cleft stick, and just beginning to be licked by the flames, was what seemed to be a leaf torn out of a book.  The book from which it had apparently been wrenched lay open on a chair near.

Kitty drew a long breath as Ashe came near her.

“Keep off!” she said—­“don’t touch it!”

“You little goose!” cried Ashe—­“what are you about?”

“Burning a coward in effigy,” said Kitty, between her teeth.

Ashe thrust his hands into his pockets.

“I wish to God you’d forget the creature, instead of flattering him with these attentions!”

Kitty made no reply, but as she drew the fire together Ashe captured her hand.

“What’s he been doing now, Kitty?”

“There are his poems,” said Kitty, pointing to the chair.  “The last one is about me.”

“May I be allowed to see it?”

“It isn’t there.”

“Ah!  I see.  You’ve topped the pile with it.  With your leave, I’ll delay its doom.”  He snatched the leaf from its stick, and bending down read it by the light of the burning paper.  Kitty watched him, frowning, her hand on her hip, the white wrap she wore over her night-dress twining round her in close folds a slender, brooding sorceress, some Canidia or Simaetha, interrupted in her ritual of hate.

But Ashe was in no mood for literary reminiscence.  His lip was contemptuous, his brow angry as he replaced the leaf in its cleft stick, whither the flames immediately pursued it.

“Wretched stuff, and damned impertinence!—­that’s all there is to say.  For Heaven’s sake, Kitty, don’t let any one suppose you mind the thing—­for an instant!”

She looked at him with strange eyes.  “But if I do mind it?”

His face darkened to the shade of hers.  “Does that mean—­that you still think of him—­still wish to see him?”

“I don’t know,” said Kitty, slowly.  The fire had died away.  Nothing but a few charred remnants remained in the brazier.  Ashe lit the gas, and disclosed a tragic Kitty, flushed by the audacity of her last remark.  He took her masterfully in his arms.

“That was bravado,” he said, kissing her.  “You love me!  And I may be a poor stick, but I’m worth a good many Cliffes.  Defy me—­and I’ll write you a better poem, too!”

The color leaped afresh in Kitty’s cheek.  She pushed him away, and, holding him, perused his handsome, scornful face, and all the manly strength of form and attitude.  Her own lids wavered.