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Doris on her side sat in unbroken silence, enduring the strain with a set face, dreading the moment when he should have leisure to speak.

He was evidently in no hurry to do so. Or was it possible that he found some difficulty in choosing his words?

At length he turned his head and spoke.

“I secured this interview,” he said, “because there is an important point which I want to discuss with you.”

“What is it?”

She nerved herself to meet his look, but her eyes fell before its steady mastery almost instantly.

“About our wedding,” he said in his calm, deliberate voice. “I should like to have the day fixed.”

Her heart gave a great thump of dismay.

“Do you really mean to hunt me down then and–and marry me against my will?” she said, almost panting out the words.

Caryl turned his eyes back to the mare.

“I mean to marry you–yes,” he said. “I think you forget that you accepted me of your own accord.”

“I was mad!” she broke in passionately.

“People in love are never wholly sane,” he remarked cynically.

“I was never in love with you!” she cried. “Never, never!”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Nevertheless you will marry me,” he said.

“Why?” she gasped back furiously. “Why should I marry you? You know I hate you, and you–you–surely you must hate me?”

“No,” he said with extreme deliberation, “strange as it may seem, I don’t.”

Something in the words quelled her anger. Abruptly she abandoned the struggle and fell silent, her face averted.

“And so,” he proceeded, “we may as well decide upon the wedding-day without further argument.”

“And, if–if I refuse?” she murmured rather incoherently.

“You will not refuse,” he said with a finality so absolute that her last hope went out like an extinguished candle.

She seized her courage with both hands and turned to him.

“You will give me a little while to think it over?”

“Why?” said Caryl.

“Because I–I can’t possibly decide upon the spur of the moment,” she said confusedly.

Was he going to refuse her even this small request? It almost seemed that he was.

“How long will it take you?” he asked. “Will you give me an answer to-night?”

Her heart leapt to a sudden hope called to life by his words.

“To-morrow!” she said quickly.

“I said to-night.”

“Very well,” she rejoined, yielding. “To-night, if you prefer it.”

“Thanks. I do.”

They were his last words on the subject. He seemed to think it ended there, and there was nothing more to be said.

As for Doris, she sat by his side, outwardly calm but inwardly shaken to the depths. To be thus firmly caught in the meshes of her own net was an experience so new and so terrifying that she was utterly at a loss as to how to cope with it. Yet there was a chance, one ray of hope to help her. There was Major Brandon, the man who had offered her freedom. He was to have his answer to-day. For the first time she began seriously to ponder what that answer should be.

CHAPTER V

THE WAY TO FREEDOM

So far as Doris was concerned the aviation meeting was not a success. There were some wonderful exhibitions of flying, but she was too preoccupied to pay more than a very superficial attention to what she saw.

They lunched at a great hotel overlooking the aviation ground. The place was crowded, and they experienced some difficulty in finding places. Eventually Doris found herself seated at a square table with Caryl and two others in the middle of the great room.

She was studying a menu as a pretext for avoiding conversation with her fiance, when a man’s voice murmured hurriedly in her ear:

“Will you allow me for a moment please? The lady who has just left this table thinks she must have dropped one of her gloves under it.”

Doris pushed back her chair and would have risen, but the speaker was already on his knees and laid a hasty, restraining hand upon her. It found hers and, under cover of the table-cloth, pressed a screw of paper into her fingers.