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“Oh, Jeff!” she said.

He went on, heedless of reproach. “It has come to this with me: friendship, if it comes at all, must come after. You tell me Chesyl is not your lover. Do you deny that he has ever made love to you?”

“Since he knew of my marriage–never!” she said.

“Yet you ride home with him in the dark hand in hand!” said Jeff.

The colour flamed in her face and as swiftly died. “Hugh Chesyl is not my lover,” she said proudly.

“And you expect me to believe you?” he said.

“I do.”

He gazed at her without pity. “You will secure my belief in you,” he said, “only by coming to me as my wife.”

A great shiver went through her. She stood silent.

“As my wife,” he repeated looking straight into her face with eyes that compelled. She was trembling from head to foot. He waited a moment, then: “You would sooner run away with Hugh Chesyl?” he asked very bitterly.

Sheer pain drove her into speech. “Oh, Jeff,” she cried passionately, “don’t make me hate you!”

He started at that as an animal starts at the goad, and in an instant he took her suddenly and fiercely by the shoulders. “Hate me, then! Hate me!” he said, and kissed her again savagely on her white, panting lips as he had kissed her the night before, showing no mercy.

She did not resist him. Her strength was gone. She hung quivering in his arms till the storm of his passion had passed also. Then: “Let us go!” she whispered: “Let us go!”

He released her slowly and turned to open the door. Then, seeing that she moved unsteadily, he put his arm about her, supporting her. So, side by side and linked together, they went out into the driving snow.

CHAPTER XII

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

Doris was nearly fainting with cold and misery when they stopped at last before the Mill House door. All the previous night she had sat up listening with nerves on edge, and had finally taken her departure in the early morning without food.

When Jeff turned to help her down she looked at him helplessly, seeing him through a drifting mist that obscured all besides. He saw her weakness at a single glance, and, mounting the step, took her in his arms.

She sank down against his shoulder. “Oh, Jeff, I can’t help it,” she whispered, through lips that were stiff and blue with cold.

“All right. I know,” he said, and for the first time in many days she heard a note of kindness in his voice.

He bore her straight through to the kitchen, and laid her down upon the old oak settle, just as he had done on that day in September when first he had brought her to his home.

Granny Grimshaw, full of tender solicitude, came hastening to her, but Jeff intervened.

“Hot milk and brandy–quick!” he ordered, and fell himself to chafing the icy fingers.

When Granny Grimshaw brought the cup, he took it from her, and held it for Doris to drink; and then, when she had swallowed a little and the blood was creeping back into her face, he took off her boots and chafed her feet also.

Granny Grimshaw put some bread into the milk while this was in progress and coaxed Doris to finish it. She asked no questions, simply treating her as she might have treated a lost child who had strayed away. There was a vast fund of wisdom in the old grey head that was so often shaken over the follies of youth.

And, finally, when Doris had a little recovered, she went with her to her room, and helped her to bed, where she tucked her up with her own hot-water bottle and left her.

From sheer exhaustion Doris slept, though her sleep was not a happy one. Long, tangled dreams wound in a ceaseless procession through her brain, and through them all she was persistently and fruitlessly striving to persuade Jeff to let her go.