have done so much for her.  He forced her to marry him by his beneficence.  Yet Margaret continued to discuss with him the arrangement of their house in Harley Street.  It had been her wish to furnish the drawing-room in the style of Louis XV; and together they made long excursions to buy chairs or old pieces of silk with which to cover them.  Everything should be perfect in its kind.  The date of their marriage was fixed, and all the details were settled.  Arthur was ridiculously happy.  Margaret made no sign.  She did not think of the future, and she spoke of it only to ward off suspicion.  She was inwardly convinced now that the marriage would never take place, but what was to prevent it she did not know.  She watched Susie and Arthur cunningly.  But though she watched in order to conceal her own secret, it was another’s that she discovered.  Suddenly Margaret became aware that Susie was deeply in love with Arthur Burdon.  The discovery was so astounding that at first it seemed absurd.

‘You’ve never done that caricature of Arthur for me that you promised,’ she said, suddenly.

‘I’ve tried, but he doesn’t lend himself to it,’ laughed Susie.

’With that long nose and the gaunt figure I should have thought you could make something screamingly funny.’

’How oddly you talk of him!  Somehow I can only see his beautiful, kind eyes and his tender mouth.  I would as soon do a caricature of him as write a parody on a poem I loved.’

Margaret took the portfolio in which Susie kept her sketches.  She caught the look of alarm that crossed her friend’s face, but Susie had not the courage to prevent her from looking.  She turned the drawings carelessly and presently came to a sheet upon which, in a more or less finished state, were half a dozen heads of Arthur.  Pretending not to see it, she went on to the end.  When she closed the portfolio Susie gave a sigh of relief.

‘I wish you worked harder,’ said Margaret, as she put the sketches down.  ‘I wonder you don’t do a head of Arthur as you can’t do a caricature.’

’My dear, you mustn’t expect everyone to take such an overpowering interest in that young man as you do.’

The answer added a last certainty to Margaret’s suspicion.  She told herself bitterly that Susie was no less a liar than she.  Next day, when the other was out, Margaret looked through the portfolio once more, but the sketches of Arthur had disappeared.  She was seized on a sudden with anger because Susie dared to love the man who loved her.

The web in which Oliver Haddo enmeshed her was woven with skilful intricacy.  He took each part of her character separately and fortified with consummate art his influence over her.  There was something satanic in his deliberation, yet in actual time it was almost incredible that he could have changed the old abhorrence with which she regarded him into that hungry passion.  Margaret could not now realize her life apart from his.  At length he thought the time was ripe for the final step.