"Let me go," she said. "Let me go. Oh, what have you made me do?"
"Something that neither of us will ever forget," he said unsteadily. "I think I will remember the touch of your dear lips on mine when I am in my grave."
"Oh, how could I forget!" She spoke in a rush of terror, with the blood burning her face. "I only thoughtof you——"
"You have only to think of me now till the end of time, Jennifer."
"No! No! You know that is not true. Oh, let me go! Let me go!"
She burst into an agony of weeping; flinging him off, and hiding her head among the cushions of the couch. He saw her slim body shake and jerk with the violence of her grief, and he stooped over her in a distress almost as great as her own. Something of the sort he had expected, although he could not understand it. But this shook him to the very core.
"Darling," he said. "Darling—for God's sake, don't. Jennifer, Jennifer; don't cry like that. Good Heavens, what can I do! What can I do! She'll kill herself. Dearest, dearest. Stop. Oh, Lord, what a clumsy brute I am."
He went down on his knees beside her; pleading in broken words; trying to see her face; shaking and moved beyond belief at her trouble, and yet knowing grimly that he must hold such rights as he had gained, both for her sake and for his own. He could never leave her now. She needed him too much.
"For the love of Heaven, stop, Jennifer," he said. "I—I can't stand it. There is nothing on earth should make you cry like that. Dear; I'm not asking much of you. People get divorces every day, and you have a perfect right to demand one of Ducane."
He laid his hand on her shoulder; but she shook it off, and sprang up, with the tears dried in her eyes.
"Don't touch me," she said, with burning cheeks. Don't touch me."
He had seen flashes of Jennifer's occasional temper before, and he breathed more freely; standing up against the
