She had given words to the very fear which had been lurking at the back of his mind from the moment he had read the briefly-worded note which Nan had left for him.

Throughout the night this belief had grown and deepened within him, and with the dawn he had motored across country to Exeter, driving like a madman, heedless of speed limits.  There he had dispatched a telegram to Penelope, and having waited unavailingly for a reply he had come straight on to town by rail.  The mark of those long hours of sickening apprehension was heavily imprinted on the white, set face he turned to Nan when she informed him that it was she who had stopped Penelope from sending any answer.

“And I suppose,” he said slowly, “it merely struck you as . . . amusing . . . to let me think what I thought?”

“You had no right to think such a thing,” she retorted.  “I may be anything bad that your mother believes me, but at least I play fair!  I left Trenby to stay with Penelope, exactly as I told you in my note.  If—­if I proposed to break my promise to you, I wouldn’t do it on the sly—­meanly, like that.”  Her eyes looked steadily into his.  “I’d tell you first.”

He snatched her into his arms with a sudden roughness, kissing her passionately.

“You’d drive a man to madness!” he exclaimed thickly.  “But I shan’t let you escape a second time,” he went on with a quiet intensity of purpose.  “You’ll come back with me now—­to-night—­to Trenby.”

She made a quick gesture of negation.

“No, no, I can’t—­I couldn’t come now!”

His grip of her tightened.

“Now!” he repeated in a voice of steel.  “And I’ll marry you by special licence within a week.  I’ll not risk losing you again.”

Nan shuddered in his arms.  To go straight from that last farewell with Peter into marriage with a man she did not love—­it was unthinkable!  She shrank from it in every fibre of her being.  Some day, perhaps, she could steel herself to make the terrible surrender.  But not now, not yet!

“No!  No!” she cried strickenly.  “I can’t marry you!  Not so soon!  You must give me time—­wait a little!  Kitty—­”

She struggled to break from him, but he held her fast.

“We needn’t wait for Kitty to come back,” he said.

“No.”  The door had opened immediately before he spoke and Kitty herself came quickly into the room.  “No,” she answered him.  “You needn’t wait for me to come back.  I returned yesterday.”

“Kitty!”

With a cry like some tortured captive thing Nan wrenched herself free and fled to Kitty’s side.

“Kitty!  Tell him—­tell him I can’t marry him now!  Not yet—­oh, I can’t!”

Kitty patted her arm reassuringly.

“Don’t worry,” she answered.  Then she turned to Roger.

“Your wedding will have to be postponed, Roger,” she said Quietly.  “Nan’s uncle died early this morning.”