Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/236

222 your own words—I accept your own terms for your putting an end to Mr. Crimble." To which, while, turning pale, she said nothing, he added: "You recognise that you profess yourself ready"

"Not again to see him," she now answered, "if you tell me the picture's safe? Yes, I recognise that I was ready—as well as how scornfully little you then were!"

"Never mind what I then was—the question's of what I actually am, since I close with you on it. The picture's therefore as safe as you please," Lord Theign pursued, "if you'll do what you just now engaged to."

"I engaged to do nothing," she replied after a pause; and the face she turned to him had grown suddenly tragic. "I've no word to take back, for none passed between us; but I won't do what I mentioned and what you at once laughed at. Because," she finished, "the case is different."

"Different?" he almost shouted—"how, different?"

She didn't look at him for it, but she was none the less strongly distinct. "He has been