White and shaken, she leaned against the window frame, clutching at the wood-work for support and staring at him with affrighted eyes as he turned once more to Rooke.

In his big, brawny strength, doubled by the driving force of anger, he seemed to tower above the slim, supple figure of the artist, who stood leaning negligently against the side of the piano, watching him with narrowed eyes and a faintly supercilious smile on his lips.

“Take your choice, Rooke,” he said shortly.  “My cheque for five hundred and get out of this, or—­” He paused significantly.

“Or? . . .  The other alternative?” murmured Rooke.  Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed in his hand.

“You’ll know that later,” he said grimly.  “I advise you to close with the five hundred.”

Rooke shook his head.

“Sorry it’s impossible.  I prefer to keep the picture.”

“Oh, Maryon, give in to him!  Do give in to him!”

The words came sobbingly from Nan’s white lips, and Rooke turned to her instantly.

“Have I your permission to keep the picture, Nan?” he asked, fixing her with his queer, magnetic eyes.

An oath broke from Roger.

“You’ll have the original, you see, Trenby,” explained Rooke urbanely, glancing towards him.

Then he turned again to Nan.

“Have I, Nan?”

She opened her lips to reply, but no words came.  She stood there silently, her eyes wide and terror-stricken, her cheeks stained with the tears that dripped down them unheeded.

Roger’s glance swept her as though there were something distasteful to him in the sight of her and she flinched under it, moaning a little.

“Well,” he said to Rooke.  “Is the picture mine—­or yours?”

“Mine,” answered Rooke.

Roger made a single stride towards the easel.  Then his hand shot out, and the next moment there was a grinding sound of ripping and tearing as, with the big blade of his clasp-knife, he slashed and rent and hacked at the picture until it was a wreck of split and riven canvas.

With a cry like that of a wounded animal Rooke leaped forward to gave it, but Roger hurled him aside as though he were a child, and once more the knife bit its way remorselessly through paint and canvas.

There was something indescribably horrible in this deliberate, merciless destruction of the exquisite work of art.  Nan, watching the keen blade sweep again and again across the painted figure of the portrait, felt as though the blows were being rained upon her actual body.  Distraught with the violence and horror of the scene she tried to scream, but her voice failed her, and with a hoarse, half-strangled cry she covered her eyes, rocking to and fro.  But the raucous sound of rending canvas still grated hideously against her ears.

Suddenly Roger ceased to cut and slash at the portrait.  Seizing it in both hands, he dragged it from the easel and flung it on the floor at Rooke’s feet.