and war.' You won, you took her away from me—and it's about Miriam that I've come to talk to you."

Heyton moistened his lips and, with his eyes fixed on his patent leather boots, he said, thickly:

"Did you tell her that—the truth?"

Dene laughed shortly. "No; I didn't. Nine men out of ten would think I was a fool for not doing so; certainly you would. But most men wouldn't understand, and most assuredly you wouldn't, why I didn't. No; I didn't tell her that I was innocent and that you were guilty; that you had forged a cheque and got me, like a fool, to present it. I didn't even tell her that it was you, you blackguard, who had ruined poor little Susie. You look surprised."

Heyton swiftly withdrew his eyes, in which astonishment, amazement, and something nearly approaching contempt, had shown, and Dene laughed with bitter scorn.

"You can't understand that a man who has once loved a woman loves her for always——"

He paused; for, at that moment, it was not the face of his old love, the woman who had jilted him for a better match, that rose before him, but that of the girl at Brown's Buildings who had stepped in between him and death, talked him back to reason, given him her last five-pound note.

"—And that even if he has ceased to love her, he'll stand a lot to save her from trouble; that he'll make any kind of sacrifice to keep disgrace and shame from her. That's how I feel towards Miriam. I thought of you being dragged off by a couple of bobbies to quod, and of how she would suffer; and I remembered—which was a precious lucky thing for you—that there was no one to suffer on my account. I thanked God—for the first time—I'd no one belonging to me. That thought made it easier for me to do what I am doing."

He tossed the end of the cigarette into the fire.

"I am going to make a bolt for it; and I looked in just to say a few words to you, Heyton. I'm standing between you and a complete bust-up. I'm doing it for Miriam's sake, not yours; and I want you to bear this in mind: that if ever I hear of your treating her badly—oh, you needn't look so virtuously indignant; I know your sort; you'd treat her badly enough presently, if you hadn't a check on you. And I'm going to be that check. Let me hear even a whisper of your acting on the cross with her, and I'll come back, if it's from the other end of the world, to denounce you. I've proofs enough. Oh, 

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