“Mary!” he exclaimed.  “Are you mad?”

“I am so sane,” she assured him, “that to your demented eyes I must seem a very maniac.  You turned me from a woman into a doll and this man turned me from a doll into a woman again.  I am his woman.  He is my man, and my place is with him.”

“That man,” her brother pointed an outstretched finger to her fiance, “is going to have no place for you to share.  My hand holds the power to make and crush and I have stamped him for obliteration.  He is doomed.  You are my sister, and you must hold loyalty above infatuation.  You must not give countenance to my enemies in time of war, Mary.  That spells treason.”

It was as though the three persons standing there had all passed, at a single step, through the explosive phases of wrath to the colder, steadier and deadlier zone of feeling where all their words came level, and with an almost monotonous quiet.

“Loyalty!” Into her eyes came so splendid and serene a light that she seemed transfigured.  “I am ready to hold loyalty above life itself.  If Jefferson Edwardes goes to his execution, I shall go with him and I shall be prouder to share his ruin than any other man’s victory.  I have just promised to marry him....”  Slowly she raised her hand and gazed at the engagement ring.  The ghost of a smile trembled about her lips, though a sudden moisture dimmed her eyes.  It was a mist of tenderness, not fear.  “That promise was not given lightly,” she added.  “It outweighs even a Monte Cristo’s arrogance.”

Edwardes shook his head.

“I release you from that promise, dear,” he told her.  “It is to be war now, and bitter war.  Before he can hurt me he must ruin hundreds of innocent noncombatants; must trample down scores of honorable institutions; and because I am responsible to them I must fight their fight to the end, asking no quarter.”  For just a moment his chin came up and he spoke with pride.  “Our concern is no weak one.  It has foundations in a nation’s faith.  Now it must meet the assaults of a Colossus running amuck.  Your brother or I must go down.  If it is I, you mustn’t go down with me, dearest.”

Very gravely she shook her head, and, turning her back on Hamilton, clasped her hands about her lover’s neck.

“That, dear,” she told him, “isn’t exactly my idea of loving.  Whoever fights you fights me as well.  I am your mate.  My brother has revealed his monstrous malignity of nature today and to sleep one night more under his roof would shrivel my soul.  I’d rather walk the streets.  I accepted you without terms.  Now I impose one condition.  You must marry me tonight.  Take me away—­make me anything but a Burton.”

Edwardes pressed her close and neither of them for the moment spoke to Hamilton or looked at him.  “It can’t be too soon,” fervently declared the lover.

“Do you suppose,” inquired Hamilton Burton, his eyes narrowing until they held a homicidal gleam, “that I shall permit you to leave my house—­with him?”