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She dropped her eyes from his.

“I–didn’t–realise–” she said in confusion.

He bent forward slightly. It was an attitude well known at the Law Courts. “Didn’t realise–” he repeated in his quiet, insistent fashion.

She met his look again–against her will.

“I didn’t realise what sort of man I had to deal with,” she said.

“Ah!” said Field. “And now?”

She shrank a little. There was something intolerably keen in his calm utterance.

“I didn’t do it,” she said rather breathlessly. “Please remember that!”

“I do,” he said.

But yet his look racked her. She threw out her hands with a sudden, desperate gesture and rose.

“Oh, are you quite without feeling? What can I appeal to? Does position mean a great deal to you? If so, my brother is very influential, and I have influential friends. I will do anything–anything in my power. Tell me what–incentive you want!”

Field rose also. They stood face to face–the self-made man and the girl who could trace her descent from a Norman baron. He was broad-built, grim, determined. She was slender, pale, and proud.

For a moment he did not speak. Then, as her eyes questioned him, he turned suddenly to a mirror over the mantelpiece behind him and showed her herself in her unveiled beauty.

“Lady Violet,” he said, and his speech had a steely, cutting quality, “you came into this room to bribe me to defend a man whom I believe to be a criminal from the consequences of his crime. And when you found I was not to be so easily bought as you imagined, you asked me if I were human. I replied to you that I was human, and not above temptation. Since then you have been trying–very hard–to find a means to tempt me. But–so far–you have overlooked the most obvious means of all. You have told me twice over that you will do anything in your power. Do you mean–literally–that?”

He was addressing the face in the glass, and still his look was almost brutally emotionless. It seemed to measure, to appraise. She met it for a few seconds, and then in spite of herself she flinched.

“Will you tell me what you mean?” she said in a low voice.

He turned round to her again.

“Why did you come here yourself?” he said. “And at night?”

She was trembling.

“I had to come myself–as soon as I knew. I hoped to persuade you.”

“You thought,” he said mercilessly, “that, however I might treat others, I could never resist you.”

“I hoped–to persuade you,” she said again.

“By–tempting–me?” he said slowly.

She gave a great start. “Mr. Field–“

He put out a quiet hand, and laid it upon her bare arm.

“Wait a moment, please! As I said before, I am not above temptation–being human. You take a very personal interest in Burleigh Wentworth, I think?”

She met his look with quivering eyelids.

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you engaged to him?” he pursued.

She winced in spite of herself.

“No.”

He raised his brows.

“You have refused him, then?”

Her face was burning.

“He hasn’t proposed to me–yet,” she said. “Perhaps he never will.”

“I see.” His manner was relentless, his hold compelling. “I will defend Burleigh Wentworth,” he said, “upon one condition.”

“What is that?” she whispered.

“That you marry me,” said Percival Field with his steady eyes upon her face.

She was trembling from head to foot.

“You–you–have never seen me before to-day,” she said.

“Yes, I have seen you,” he said, “several times. I have known your face and figure by heart for a very long while. I haven’t had the time to seek you out. It seems to have been decreed that you should do that part.”

Was there cynicism in his voice? It seemed so. Yet his eyes never left her. They held her by some electric attraction which she was powerless to break.

She looked at him, white to the lips.

“Are you–in–earnest?” she asked at last.

Again for an instant she saw his faint smile.

“Don’t you know the signs yet?” he said. “Surely you have had ample opportunity to learn them!”

A tinge of colour crept beneath her pallor.