"The lady that left the bracelet was there with a gentleman." Mary winced.
Then Bartley said, sternly, "Who was your companion ?" "I must not say." "You will say one thing," said Bartley, "or I shall have no mercy on you.
Are you secretly married ?" Then a single word flashed across Mary's almost distracted mind--SELF-SACRIFICE.

She held her tongue.
"Can't you speak?
Are you a wife ?" He now began to speak so loud in his anger that everybody heard it.
Mary crouched a little and worked her hands convulsively under the torture, but she answered with such a doggedness that evidently she would have let herself be cut to pieces sooner than said more.
"I--don't--know." "You don't know ?" roared Bartley.
Mary paused, and then, with iron doggedness, "I--don't--know." This apparent insult to his common-sense drove Bartley almost mad.

"You have given these cursed Cliffords a triumph over me," he cried; "you have brought shame to my door; but it shall never pass the threshold." Here the Colonel uttered a contemptuous snort.

This drove Bartley wild altogether; he rushed at the Colonel, and shook his fist in his face.
"You stand there sneering at my humiliation; now see the example I can make." Then he was down upon Mary in a moment, and literally yelled at her in his fury.

"Go to your paramour, girl; go where you will.