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Slowly he bent towards her. “Let him drown!” he said again. “Do you think I’m going to let you throw your life away for a cur like that?”

There was uncloaked ferocity in the question. His hold was merciless.

“I saved you,” he said. “It wasn’t especially easy. But I did it. For the matter of that, I’d have gone through hell for you. And do you think I’m going to let you go again–now?”

She did not answer him. Only her lips moved stiffly, as though they formed words she could not utter. She could not take her eyes from his, though his looks seared her through and through.

He went on, deeply, with gathering force. “He’d have let you be swept away. He didn’t care. All he wanted was to get you for his picture. That was all he made love to you for. He’d have sacrificed you to the devil for that. You don’t believe me, maybe, but I know–I know!”

There was savage certainty in the reiterated words, and the girl recoiled from them, her face like death. But he held her still, implacably, relentlessly.

“That’s all he wants of you,” he said. “To use you for his purpose, and then–to throw you aside. Why”–and he suddenly showed his clenched teeth–“he dared–damn him!–he dared to tell me so!”

“He–told you!” Her lips spoke the words at last, but they seemed to come from a long way off.

“Yes.” With suppressed violence he answered her. “He didn’t put it that way–being a gentleman! But he took care to make me understand that he only wanted you for the sake of his accursed picture. That’s the only thing that counts with him, and he’s the sort not to care what he does to get it. He wouldn’t have got you–like this–if he hadn’t made you love him first. I know that too–as well as if you’d told me.”

The passion in his voice was rising, and it was as if the heat of it rekindled her animation. With a jerky movement she flung up both her hands, grasping tensely the arms that held her so rigidly.

“Yes, I love him!” she said, and her voice rang wildly. “I love him! I don’t care what he is! Rufus–Rufus–oh, for the love of Heaven, don’t let him drown!” The words rushed out desperately; it was as if her whole nature, all her pride, all her courage, were flung into that frantic appeal. She clung to the man with straining entreaty. “Oh, go down and save him!” she begged. “I’ll do anything for you in return–anything you like to ask! Only do this one thing for me! He may have escaped the tide. If so, he’ll try the quicksand, and he don’t know the lie of it! Rufus, you wouldn’t want–your worst enemy–to die like that!”

She broke off, wildly sobbing, yet still clinging to him in agonised entreaty. The man’s face, with its crude ferocity, the untamed glitter of its fiery eyes, was still bent to hers, but she no longer shrank from it. The power that moved her was too immense to be swayed by lesser things. His attitude no longer affected her, one way or another. It had ceased to count, so that she only wrenched from him this one great boon.

And Rufus must have realised the fact, for he stood up sharply and backed against the door, releasing her.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said gruffly.

“I do–I do!” With anguished reiteration she answered him. “I’m not the sort that offers and then doesn’t pay. Oh, don’t waste time talking! Every moment may be his last. Go down–go down to the shore! You’re so strong. Save him–save him!”

She beat her clasped hands against his broad chest, till abruptly he put up his own again and held them still.

“Columbine!” For the second time he uttered her name, and for the second time the command in his voice caught and compelled her. “Just you listen a minute!” he said, and as he spoke his look swept her with a mastery that dominated even her agony. “If I go and save the cur, you’ve done with him for ever–you swear that?”