"But it's the truth!" she said.

"It's a d.a.m.nable lie!" said Nick.

"Nick," it was Max's voice measured and deliberate, "will you leave me to deal with this?"

Olga's hand turned in Nick's and clung to it. "You needn't go, Nick,"

she said hurriedly.

"Yes, I'm going," said Nick. "You can come to me afterwards if you like.

I shall be in my room."

He squeezed her hand and relinquished it. His yellow face was full of kindness, but she saw that he would not be persuaded to remain. In silence she watched him go.

Then slowly, reluctantly, she turned to Max. He was standing watching her with fixed, implacable eyes.

"Well?" he said, as she looked at him. "Do you really want me to deny this preposterous story?"

She leaned against the wall, facing him. She felt unutterably tired--as if she were too weary to take any further interest in anything. Neither his denial nor Nick's could make the tale untrue.

"It doesn't make much difference," she said drearily.

"Thanks!" said Max shortly.

And then, as if suddenly making up his mind, he came to her and took her almost roughly by the shoulders.

"Olga," he said, "how dare you believe this thing of me?"

She looked at him and her face quivered. "You have never told me the truth," she said.

"And so you are ready to believe any calumny," said Max. His hands pressed upon her; his red brows were drawn together.

At any other moment she would have deemed him formidable, but she was beyond fear just then.

"If you would only tell me what to believe--" she said.

"And if I won't?" He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "If I demand your trust on this point--as I have a right to demand it on every point--what then? Are you going to give me everything except that?"

She shook her head. "No, Max."

"What do you mean?" he demanded.

She answered him steadily enough. "I mean that unless you can tell me the truth--the truth, Max," there was a piteous touch in her repet.i.tion of the words--"I can never give you--anything."

"Meaning you won't marry me?" he said.

Steadily she answered him. "Yes, I mean just that."

He continued to hold her before him. His face grew harder, grimmer than before. "And you think I will suffer myself to be thrown over?" he said.

That pierced her lethargy, quickened her to resistance. "I think you have no choice," she said.

Max's jaw set itself like an iron clamp. "There you show your absolute ignorance," he said, "of me--and of yourself."

"You couldn't hold me against my will," she said quickly.

"Could I not?" said Max.

Something of fear crept about her heart, hastening its beat. But she faced him unflinching. "No," she said.

He was silent; but she had an inexplicable feeling that the green eyes were drawing her gradually, mercilessly, against her will. Yet she resisted them, summoning all her strength.

And then she became aware that his hold had tightened and grown close.

She awoke to the fact very suddenly, as one coming out of a trance, and swiftly, nervously, she sought to free herself.

Instantly his arms were about her. He gathered her to him with a force that compelled. He crushed her lips with his own in kisses so fierce and so pa.s.sionate that she winced from them in actual pain, not sparing her till she sank in his arms, spent, unresisting, crying against his shoulder.

He made no attempt to comfort her; his hold was sustaining, but grimly devoid of all tenderness. Later she knew that he had fought a desperate battle for her happiness and his own, and it was no moment for relaxation.

He spoke to her at last, curtly, over her bowed head, "And you think--you dare to think--that I have ever loved another woman."

"I don't know what to think," she whispered, hiding her face lower on his breast.

"Then think this," he said, and there was a ring of iron in his voice, "that for no slander whatever will I hold myself answerable, either to you or to anyone else. I shall not defend myself from it. I shall not deny it. And because of it I will not suffer myself to be jilted. Is that enough?"

He spoke with indomitable resolution, but there must have been some yielding quality in the last words, for she suddenly found strength to lift her head again and turn her face up to his.

"Max," she said imploringly, "I believe I have wronged you, and I do beg you to forgive me.--But, Max, there is one thing that--for my peace of mind--you must tell me. Please, Max, please!"

She set her clasped hands against him, beseeching him with her whole soul. He looked down into her eyes, and his own were no longer stern but quite impenetrable. He spoke no word.

"I have always known," she said, faltering a little under his look, "always felt that there was something--something strange about--Violet's sudden death. Max, tell me--tell me--she didn't--make away with herself?"

She uttered the question with a shrinking dread that seemed to run shuddering through her whole body. And because he did not instantly reply, her face whitened with a sick suspense.

"Oh, she didn't!" she gasped imploringly. "Say she didn't! I--I think it would break my heart if--if--if--that--had happened."

"You must remember that she was not responsible for her actions," Max said.

Olga was trembling all over. "Then she did?"

He avoided the question. "Her life was over," he said, "in any case."

"Then she did?" Again sharply she put the question, as though goaded thereto by an intolerable pain. "Max," she said, "oh, Max, I could bear anything better than that! I don't believe it of her! I can't believe it!"

"But why torture yourself in this way?" he said. "What do you gain by it?"

"Because I must, I must!" she answered feverishly. "I dream about her night after night--night after night. My mind is never at rest about her. She seems to be calling to me, trying to tell me something. And I never can get to her or hear what it is. It's all because I can't remember. And sometimes I feel as if I shall go mad myself with trying."