'Now he is all I have,' she thought bitterly. 'Surely he must understand that? I – I need him so.'

She shut her eyes tightly to force back the tears. Her anger rose. Patience was never her most shining virtue and now it made her so cross to think of her husband wasting his time with Beaufort that she had to fight back a sudden impulse to rush downstairs and drag him away. It was bad enough that the man had been invited to spend the night in the house at all. It seemed to Marianne that his presence hung over it, if not exactly as a threat, certainly as an incubus. This may have been due simply to her dislike of him but, however much she tried to talk herself out of it, the sense of a shadow looming over Selton Hall remained.

'Won't you let me put you to bed?' Mrs Jenkins spoke hesitantly from behind her. 'It would be best – well more fit for you to be in bed when your Francis comes.'

'When will he come?, Marianne blurted out angrily. 'Will he come at all?'

Her pride and her love were both suffering. She must count for very little in Francis's eyes. But perhaps, after all, his concept of love was very different from a seventeen-year old girl's. But she saw Jenkins looking at her unhappily and relented.

'I'm not feeling sleepy,' she said with an assurance she was far from feeling. 'I would rather stay up. But you, my good Jenkins, you go to bed. I – I shall read for a while.'

To support her words she took a book at random from a small bookcase and, settling herself in an armchair, bestowed on Mrs Jenkins a smile which did not deceive that good woman in the least. She knew Marianne too well not to see through any such attempt to pull the wool over her own or anyone else's eyes. However, thinking it quite right and proper for her young lady to behave with a dignity in which, to Mrs Jenkins way of thinking, her husband was at that moment singularly lacking, the housekeeper did not insist. With a prim 'goodnight, my lady,' she dropped a curtsey, smiled warmly and withdrew.

She was hardly gone before Marianne flung the book into a corner and gave way to scalding tears.

Was it possible a game of cards could take so long? Two hours later Marianne had exhausted every possible outlet for her disappointment and exacerbated nerves. She had walked up and down the room until her feet trembled, gnawed her handkerchief to shreds and wept her heart out until she was forced to wash her face in cold water to remove the traces of tears. Now, dry eyed but with burning cheeks she admitted at last that she was frightened, simply frightened.

What could be keeping him so long? No game of cards could warrant such behaviour on one's wedding night. Perhaps something had happened to Francis. At once, the girl's imagination began building up a succession of improbable catastrophes. He might be ill. She was seized by a mad, childish longing to run downstairs and see what was the matter but some remnants of pride made her pause in the doorway. Suppose Francis were really sitting calmly in the drawing room playing whist? What a fool she would look—

Forcing herself to think calmly, she decided to do the only thing which seemed to her properly dignified and at the same time to offer a little balm to her wounded feelings, lock her door, go to bed, put out the light and sleep or at least pretend to since she knew that underlying her anger was a wretchedness that made the chance of sleep remote.

All around was the silent house. The noises of the sleeping countryside came to her through the open window. The belated shriek of a nightjar sounded somewhere deep in the woods. Marianne went to the door, shot the bolt and, tugging off her dressing gown as she went, hurried into bed. But she had hardly laid her dark head on the lace pillow, after first hurling the one intended for Francis viciously to the ground, when there was a soft tap at the door.

Her heart lurched in her breast and she lay frozen, not knowing what to do. She was torn between resentment, whispering to her to leave the door shut and pretend to be asleep, and love telling her to run to meet him with open arms now that he had come at last. The tapping came again, a little louder. Marianne could bear it no longer. She slipped out of bed, ran barefoot to the door and opened it. Then she stepped back with a gasp of surprise. There, standing in the doorway, was not Francis but Jason Beaufort.

'May I come in for a moment?' the American said. He smiled, revealing a flash of strong white teeth. 'I have to speak to you—'

Suddenly conscious of the extreme thinness of her nightgown, which offered nothing in the way of concealment, Marianne fell upon her robe with a cry of horror and wrapped it hastily around her. Once safely enveloped in its many flounces of lawn and lace, she felt sufficiently confident to face her unexpected visitor. Anger at being so surprised made her voice tremble as she said coldly:

'You cannot be aware of the impropriety of such a visit at this hour, sir, or you would scarcely have ventured to knock on my door. What you have to say must be very grave to justify such behaviour. I am awaiting my husband and—'

'Precisely, and I am here to tell you he will not come – not tonight at least!'

Instantly all Marianne's anxieties returned and she blamed herself bitterly for disregarding them. Something had happened to her Francis! But the American had read her fears in her eyes before she had time to utter them.

'No,' he said, 'nothing terrible has happened to him.'

'Then you have been making him drunk?'

Without waiting for a permission which was not forthcoming, Jason came inside and shut the door carefully behind him regardless of Marianne's frown. He was inside the room almost before she was aware of it. He looked at her and began to laugh.

'Well, what kind of education have you had, my lady, to make you think that only the fact that he was dead drunk would keep a husband from his marriage bed? Where the devil were you brought up?'

'My education is no concern of yours,' she snapped, stung by the American's laughter. 'Only tell me what has happened to Francis and then go!'

Jason made a face and bit his lip.

'Hospitality would not seem to be your strong point either. However, what I have to tell you will take a little time – besides being somewhat delicate. May I?'

With a slight, mocking bow he went and sat down in a large tapestry-covered armchair that stood beside the fire, stretched out his long booted legs comfortably and looked up at the girl.

Marianne stood quivering beside the bed, her arms crossed over her breast, visibly struggling against a growing anger which made her eyes gleam like two hard green stones. The intruder looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, touched despite himself by her obvious youth and perhaps also by some private scruples. She had the animal grace of a young thoroughbred yet at the same time a warm femininity which touched some deep cord in the American. He found himself dwelling with a good deal of pleasure on the tantalizing and delightful vision he had beheld a moment before when she opened the door. But as he looked at her, a kind of rage welled up in him against Francis Cranmere and also against himself for being, through his own fault as much as the Englishman's, in this impossible situation.

At length, his silent scrutiny became too much for Marianne.

'Sir,' she broke out furiously, 'I warn you if you do not leave my room at once, I will have you thrown out, perhaps not by my husband, since you tell me he will not come, but by my servants!'

'If I were you, I would do no such thing. We, that is your husband, yourself and your humble servant are already in a somewhat delicate situation without your making it any worse by causing a scandal in the middle of the night. Leave your servants in their beds and listen to me. Come over here now and sit down. I have told you, I must speak to you seriously and I ask you to hear me with patience.'

All trace of mockery had vanished. The sailor's blue eyes were hard as granite. The words were an order and, automatically, Marianne obeyed. She came slowly and sat down facing him as he had said, forcing herself to be calm. Her instinct told her that something was coming for which she would need all her self control. She took a deep breath.

'I am listening,' she said coldly. 'But be quick. I am very tired—'

'It doesn't show. Listen, Lady Cranmere (he stressed the name deliberately), what I have to tell you may seem strange but I reckon you can stand a shock without flinching.'

'You are too kind. To what do I owe this good opinion?'

Marianne said lightly making an effort to conceal her growing alarm. What could the man be getting at?

'Mine is a hard life and I can judge a person's worth,' Beaufort answered curtly.

'Then be good enough to cut these preliminaries and come to the point. What are you trying to tell me?'

'This. I played cards with your husband this evening—'

'At whist? I know – for several hours, I believe.'

'That is so. We played and Francis lost.'

The girl's lovely mouth curved in faint scorn. Was that all? She thought she knew what the American had in mind. A mere matter of money.

'I do not see how that concerns me. If my husband has lost, then he will pay, of course.'

'He has paid, but that is not all. Will you pay, also?'

'What do you mean?'

'That Lord Cranmere has lost not only everything that he possessed, which was little enough, but also all the dowry you have brought him—'

'What!' Marianne had gone very pale.

'He has lost your fortune, your lands placed in his keeping, and the house itself with all that it contains – and more besides!' Beaufort spoke with a contained fury that frightened Marianne. She stood up but her legs refused to bear her and she had to lean on the arms of her chair. Everything seemed plunged into confusion, she felt as though she was going mad. Even the solid walls of her room seemed to be swaying and lurching wildly.

She had often heard her aunt and the abbé de Chazay discussing, in shocked whispers, the extraordinary passion for gambling which possessed the youth of England, the endless, hectic gaming parties at which fortunes changed hands, the absurd bets on the most improbable things for the sake of which men were willing to stake even their lives. But it had never occurred to her that Francis, so calm and aristocratic, with his extraordinary self possession, might indulge in such follies. It was not true! It could not be true! It was not possible.

She favoured Beaufort with a glance of biting contempt.

'You are lying,' she said as calmly as she could. 'My husband is incapable of such a thing!'

'How do you know? For how long have you known the man you married today?'

'My aunt knew him from a child. That is enough for me.'

'Who can claim to know what moves a woman's heart? I imagine Lady Selton was ignorant of Francis Cranmere's passion for gaming. At all events,' the American went on in a harder voice, 'I have not lied to you. Your husband has just lost all that you possess – and more besides.'

Marianne heard him with growing annoyance. She disliked his easy manner and the steady gaze of his blue eyes but his last words awoke an echo in her mind.

'That is the second time you have said that. I do not understand. What do you mean with your "and more besides" ?'

Jason Beaufort did not reply at once. He could feel the young girl's nerve stretched taught as a bow string, perhaps at that limit of tension that comes before the breaking point. But she had weathered one storm and he liked that. It pleased him to have a worthy opponent.

'Well, why don't you answer me?' Marianne said cuttingly. 'Are you afraid, suddenly, or are you searching for some suitable lie?'

'I was merely wondering,' the American said gently, 'how you were going to take the remainder of what I have to – shall I say, confide.'

'Say what you like, but say it quickly!'

'After Lord Cranmere had lost everything, when he had nothing left to stake, he lost his temper and volunteered to win back all he had lost at one go. He proposed to stake, against all his former property, something infinitely more precious than all…'

He paused again, hesitating to say the words which, in the presence of those clear eyes, seemed suddenly out of all proportion monstrous. And Marianne's throat was so dry with fear that she could find no voice to bid him go on. Her 'what?' was scarcely more than a whisper.