“Meaning you won’t marry me?” he said.

Steadily she answered him.  “Yes, I mean just that.”

He continued to hold her before him.  His face grew harder, grimmer than before.  “And you think I will suffer myself to be thrown over?” he said.

That pierced her lethargy, quickened her to resistance.  “I think you have no choice,” she said.

Max’s jaw set itself like an iron clamp.  “There you show your absolute ignorance,” he said, “of me—­and of yourself.”

“You couldn’t hold me against my will,” she said quickly.

“Could I not?” said Max.

Something of fear crept about her heart, hastening its beat.  But she faced him unflinching.  “No,” she said.

He was silent; but she had an inexplicable feeling that the green eyes were drawing her gradually, mercilessly, against her will.  Yet she resisted them, summoning all her strength.

And then she became aware that his hold had tightened and grown close.  She awoke to the fact very suddenly, as one coming out of a trance, and swiftly, nervously, she sought to free herself.

Instantly his arms were about her.  He gathered her to him with a force that compelled.  He crushed her lips with his own in kisses so fierce and so passionate that she winced from them in actual pain, not sparing her till she sank in his arms, spent, unresisting, crying against his shoulder.

He made no attempt to comfort her; his hold was sustaining, but grimly devoid of all tenderness.  Later she knew that he had fought a desperate battle for her happiness and his own, and it was no moment for relaxation.

He spoke to her at last, curtly, over her bowed head, “And you think—­you dare to think—­that I have ever loved another woman.”

“I don’t know what to think,” she whispered, hiding her face lower on his breast.

“Then think this,” he said, and there was a ring of iron in his voice, “that for no slander whatever will I hold myself answerable, either to you or to anyone else.  I shall not defend myself from it.  I shall not deny it.  And because of it I will not suffer myself to be jilted.  Is that enough?”

He spoke with indomitable resolution, but there must have been some yielding quality in the last words, for she suddenly found strength to lift her head again and turn her face up to his.

“Max,” she said imploringly, “I believe I have wronged you, and I do beg you to forgive me.—­But, Max, there is one thing that—­for my peace of mind—­you must tell me.  Please, Max, please!”

She set her clasped hands against him, beseeching him with her whole soul.  He looked down into her eyes, and his own were no longer stern but quite impenetrable.  He spoke no word.

“I have always known,” she said, faltering a little under his look, “always felt that there was something—­something strange about—­Violet’s sudden death.  Max, tell me—­tell me—­she didn’t—­make away with herself?”