Agatha remained quite still. Her heart was beating wildly, but she showed no outward sign of fear, and it was too dark now for him to see that her face was as white a death.

"Take away your hand," she said, presently, in a tone that startled even herself, it was so calm, and with a touch of dignity in it not to be withstood. Truly, "courage mounteth with occasion."

Darkham let her go instinctively, but he still stood facing her, and through the deepening of the night she felt that his eyes were on her. At last he spoke.

"You think you will marry him," he said. His voice was low, not at all violent; but it frightened Agatha the more perhaps for that. At all events it rang in her ears for days afterwards.

His hopes were at fever height when he reached the villa. He had entered the tiny avenue and come cautiously up, hidden by the rhododendrons, to that small gate inside which the girl so often at this hour ministered to her flowers.

And then he had seen her—in Dillwyn's arms.

The evening was not so far advanced, and the delicate light of a first love that lay on her beautiful face was quite clear to him. He saw her lift her arms, and let Dillwyn take her into his. They kissed each other.

He went a little mad then. He lost consciousness for a moment or two, and clung to a tree close to him. So much had been dared and done, and now was it all to be in vain?

He recovered himself presently, remembering everything, and a great oath broke from him. He swore to himself that the one terrible deed of his life should not lie fallow. Something should come of it. It should bear fruit.

He withdrew into the denser shadow, and waited, and watched, and listened. He was not naturally a man of base understandings. There was nothing small about him, and probably under happier circumstance he would have disdained to lie there in ambush watching and listening; but now passion mastered him, and his love for Agatha—the one pure sentiment of his life—was unhappily the undoing of him. It should have ennobled him; it only debased him.

Everything seemed to be falling from him. This girl on whom his soul was set would not so much as look at him, and Dillwyn— that affair of General Montgomery's had touched him. In time the wedge, that now had got in its thin edge, would work deeper and take from him his practice. A hatred against Dillwyn had always been in his breast ever since those earliest days when he first came to Rickton, and now it blazed and grew to monstrous dimensions.

What! was Dillwyn to "supplant him these two times?" Never! His courage came back to him. His indomitable will grew strong again. As Dillwyn passed him on his way home he raised is hand as if to strike him to the earth, but paused.

"You think you will marry him," said he again. "You think it possible to escape me." He was quite beside himself, or he would hardly have dared so to speak to her.

"I don't understand you," said Agatha coldly. "It is late. I wish to go in."

"Not too late, however, for you to see your lover!"

"Dr. Darkham! This is not the first time you have spoken to me like this. I must ask you to let it be the last. For you to dictate to me on any subject is impertinence," she said haughtily. "I am sure you must see it. I am nothing to you, and you are, if possible, less to me."

"You are wrong there!" He took a step nearer to her, and the girl set her teeth hard. If he were to touch her! At this moment the moon came out from behind a cloud and showed her his face— dark, determined, passionate. "You are all the world to me. Life itself! Do you hear? Do you understand? You are my very life! And a man fights hard for his life. I shall fight hard," he said.

"It is bad to fight for failure," said she. Her hands were icy cold now, but her face was impassive. "I hope you will go away now. My aunt, as you know, is not in, and—-"

"Did Dillwyn know that too—that your aunt was not in? Do you think he would have come here if he had not known it?"

"I am sure he would," said the girl. There was a change in her voice as she spoke of him, a sudden tenderness, a glad delight. The man listening noticed it, and it maddened him the more.

"You—-" He stopped short, as if to complete the sentence was beyond him. His voice was thick, uncertain. "You will tell me next," said he, leaning forward and gazing at her threateningly, "that you love him!"

"Yes; I love him!"

Darkham burst into a wild laugh.

"Him! Love him! A man who courts you clandestinely, who has not the courage or the desire to do so openly. Has he spoken to your aunt? Come, what has he done? Has he asked your hand in marriage of your only guardian? Or is he playing fast and loose with you? It would not be the first time he had played that game. Why, there are tales of him in the village."

Agatha made a gesture of contempt.

"There are no tales of Dr. Dillwyn in this village or any other," she said. "As for his speaking to Mrs. Greatorex, he would have spoken to her to-day but that I forbade him. He will speak to her to-morrow."

"So he says, no doubt. But even if he does speak—what then? Will Mrs. Greatorex listen to the proposals of a pauper?"

"She will, I am sure, listen to the proposals of a gentleman."

She had not meant this as a cut to him, but it went home. He writhed under it.

"She will listen to me," said he. "To me only—though I may not be what you in your arrogance class as a gentleman."

"Dr. Darkham. I assure you—I—" She was shocked at his reading of her words. Her face, pale and beautiful, turned to him full of contrition. It seemed terrible to her, to have even inadvertently hurt the feelings of any one. "I did not mean that."

This sudden change on her part, from extreme coldness to a faint kindness, came as the dew from heaven to Darkham. This little touch of sweetness, what might it not lead to if he pleaded with her? Pleaded with all his soul—for his soul!

"Agatha!" cried he, "hear me. I beseech you to hear me. Everything is against me; I know that; but you—if you could only understand what you are to me!"

"I do not wish to understand." She broke into his stammering speech with a certain courage, but a courage that she felt was failing her. For the first time real fear seized upon her.

"You shall understand," said he. "When I tell you that my very soul is in your keeping—-"

He broke off and tried to take her hand, but she pushed him from her. She felt terrified.

"Your soul! Yours!" she said. "Oh, no, no, no!"

There was such horror, such open shrinking, in her whole air that he stood and looked at her. Had she heard anything? Was there a suspicion in her mind? Impossible! He dismissed that thought, but another rose. He felt now that his case was hopeless, so far as she was concerned. He was abhorrent to her. She loathed him, and —strongest lever of all against him—she loved another. Had she been free he might have won her, but he knew her well enough —and it was this knowledge that had drawn him to her—to understand that when once steadfastly determined she would be hard to move.

"You have decided?" said he.

She made a little movement to signify acquiescence.

"You deliberately choose a life of want?"

"I choose the life I wish to lead."

"And Mrs. Greatorex? She has been good to you. You will go against her? yet you owe her something."

"I owe her more than I can ever repay," said Agatha with emotion.

"But not the selling of my soul."

"You have made up your mind?" said Darkham again. His tone was a question, and the question conveyed a threat. "You absolutely refuse me? Think—think again, Agatha—think!"

"I have thought."

He broke out then,—

"You defy me?"

She faced him bravely even at this moment, when her heart was dying within her.

"Yes, I defy you!"

He drew nearer to her, and caught her arm. His face was close to hers. Such a face!

"To defy me"—he spoke below his breath—"you must be mad to defy me. Now, hear me! You will never marry that fool of yours. I shall prevent that, even though"—he paused ominously—"I have to destroy him."

The word "destroy" might have had reference to Dillwyn's profession, but to the girl's over-wrought imagination it sounded like a death-knell. Oh, to get away! To think!

She would have tried to pass him, but something warned her that such a movement would be unwise. To show cowardice of any sort in his present excited state would be madness. She held her ground bravely, and prayed to Heaven for deliverance of some sort.

And Heaven sent it.