“You are wrong, Sylvia!  You are wrong!” Shrilly Mrs. Ingleton broke in upon her, for there was something awful in the girl’s eyes—­they had a red-hot look.  “Whatever I have done has been for your good always.  Your father will testify to that.  Go and ask him if you don’t believe me!”

“My father had nothing to do with this!” said Sylvia in tones of withering scorn.  “Whatever else he lacks, he has a sense of honour.  But you—­you are a wicked woman, unprincipled, cruel, venomous.  It may be my father’s duty to live with you, but—­thank heaven—­it is not mine.  You have come into my home and cursed it.  I will never sleep under the same roof with you again.”

She turned with the words to leave the room, and found her father and George Preston just coming out of the library on the other side of the hall.  Fearlessly she swung round and confronted them.  The utter freedom of her at that moment made her superb.  The miracle had happened.  She had rent the net that entangled her to shreds.

Mrs. Ingleton was beginning to clamour in the room behind her.  She turned swiftly and shut and locked the door.  Then she faced the two men with magnificent courage.

“I have to tell you,” she said, addressing them both impersonally, “that my engagement to Guy Ranger is unbroken.  I have just found out that my step-mother has been suppressing his letters to me.  That, of course, alters everything.  And—­also of course—­it makes it impossible for me to stay here any longer.  I am going to him—­at once.”

Her eyes went rapidly from her father’s face to Preston’s.  It was he who came forward and answered her.  The squire seemed struck dumb.

“Egad!” he said.  “I’ve never seen you look so rippin’ in all my life!  That’s how you look when you’re angry, is it?  Now I shall know what to watch out for when we’re married.”

She answered him with a quiver of scorn.  “We never shall be married, Mr. Preston.  You may put that out of your mind for ever.  I am going to Guy by the next boat.”

“Not you!” laughed Preston.  “You’re in a paddy just now, my dear, but when you’ve thought it over soberly you’ll find there are a good many little obstacles in the way of that.  You haven’t been brought up to rough it for one.  And Guy Ranger, as I think we settled last night, has probably married half a dozen blacks already.  It’s too great a risk, Cherry-ripe!  And—­if I know you—­you won’t take it.”

“You don’t know me,” said Sylvia.  She turned, from him and went to her father.  “Have you nothing to say,” she asked, “about this vile and hateful plot?  But I suppose you can’t.  She is your wife.  However much you despise her, you have got to endure her.  But I have not.  And so I am going—­to-day!”

Her voice rang clear and unfaltering.  She looked him straight in the eyes.  He made a sharp movement, almost as if that full regard pierced him.