he wanted from me, and when I began to be successful as a dancer he—­married me.  I thought it would make things better.  I didn’t think, if I were his wife, he could go on ill-treating me quite so much.  But I soon found my mistake.  I soon found I was even more his slave than before.  And then—­just a week before the fire—­another woman came, and told me that it was not a real marriage; that—­that he had been through exactly the same form with her—­and there was nothing in it.”

She stopped again at sound of a low laugh from Vulcan.  “Not quite the same form, my dear,” he said.  “Yours was as legal and binding as the English law could make it.  I have the certificate with me to prove this.  As you say, you were valuable to me then—­as you will be again, and so I was careful that the contract should be complete in every particular.  Now—­if you have quite finished your—­shall we call it confession?—­I suggest that you should return to your lawful husband and leave this gentleman to console himself as soon as may be.  It is growing late, and it is not my intention that you should spend another night under his protection.”

He spoke slowly, with a curious, compelling emphasis, and as if in answer to that compulsion Puck’s eyes came back to his.

“Oh, no!” she said, in a quick, frightened whisper.  “No!  I can’t!  I can’t!”

Yet she made a movement towards him as if drawn irresistibly.

And at that movement, wholly involuntary as it was, something in Merryon’s brain seemed to burst.  He saw all things a burning, intolerable red.  With a strangled oath he caught her back, held her violently—­a prisoner in his arms.

“By God, no!” he said.  “I’ll kill you first!”

She turned in his embrace.  She lifted her lips and passionately kissed him.  “Yes, kill me!  Kill me!” she cried to him.  “I’d rather die!”

Again the stranger laughed, though his eyes were devilish.  “You had better come without further trouble,” he remarked.  “You will only add to your punishment—­which will be no light one as it is—­by these hysterics.  Do you wish to see my proofs?” He addressed Merryon with sudden open malignancy.  “Or am I to take them to the colonel of your regiment?”

“You may take them to the devil!” Merryon said.  He was holding her crushed to his heart.  He flung his furious challenge over her head.  “If the marriage was genuine you shall set her free.  If it was not”—­he paused, and ended in a voice half-choked with passion—­“you can go to blazes!”

The other man showed his teeth in a wolfish snarl.  “She is my wife,” he said, in his slow, sibilant way.  “I shall not set her free.  And—­wherever I go, she will go also.”

“If you can take her, you infernal blackguard!” Merryon threw at him.  “Now get out.  Do you hear?  Get out—­if you don’t want to be shot!  Whatever happens to-morrow, I swear by God in heaven she shall not go with you to-night!”