The Cross of Love by Barbara Cartland Page A

tell you how delightful it felt to turn him down. I don't think anyone's done that for years. Oh, my goodness!"
    She straightened up suddenly, her hands over her mouth as a shattering thought occurred to her.
    "Rena, what is it?"
    "I shouldn't have turned him down. I should have taken the ten thousand and given it to you. Oh, how could I be so stupid?"
    "Cheat him, you mean?" John asked, grinning.
    "After all the people he must have cheated by now, it's about time somebody did it to him."
    Sweet heaven! Papa would have a fit.
    With his uncanny ability to read her mind, John asked, "Is this the kind of thinking you learned at the parsonage?"
    "No, I invented it myself," she said defiantly. "Papa would be shocked."
    "And very surprised I should think."
    "No, not surprised. He always said the tone of my mind left room for improvement."
    "I think the tone of your mind is perfect. It's very sweet of you to want to do this for me, but don't blame yourself for not thinking of it in time. I doubt you could really have fooled him. He wouldn't have given you a penny until you were well away from here and it was too late."
    Rena nodded. "You're right. He's just the sort of mean, suspicious character who'd do that."
    "So what happened when you'd turned him down? How did he react to your refusal."
    She shrugged, unwilling to tell him more.
    "Rena, what is it? Did he dare to attack you?"
    "No, of course not."
    "Then what? Please don't keep things from me. Rena! For pity's sake, you're scaring me."
    "He wanted to buy me in another way," she said, not looking at him.
    "You mean he - ?"
    She shrugged and said as lightly as she could, "He offered to set me up in a fine house in Park Lane, clothes, jewels, everything I could want."
    "He did what?" The words came from him in a violent whisper.
    "I turned that down too and he became very angry."
    "He dared say such a thing to you?" John asked quietly. "He dared to besmirch you, even in his thoughts?" He got abruptly to his feet.
    "John, where are you going?"
    "To find him and throttle him."
    There was a black look on his face that she had never seen before. Suddenly the amiable joker she knew had vanished, replaced by a man in a bitter rage.
    "No." She jumped to her feet and followed him out of the kitchen. "You mustn't do that."
    "You expect me to do nothing, when he insults you?" He started up the stairs.
    "Where are you going?"
    "To get my pistol."
    She began to run after him up the stairs, struggling to keep up. He had reached his room before she caught him.
    "John, listen to me, there's nothing that you can do."
    "I can make him sorry he was born. I can bring him here and make him grovel to you - "
    "And how much reputation would I have left then?" She took hold of his arms and gave him a little shake. She could feel him trembling with rage.
    "Then I'll blow his miserable brains out," he shouted. "Yes, that's the thing to do. Then the filthy thoughts that he dared to have of you will be blown to smithereens, and nobody will ever know that he insulted the sweetest, most perfect woman alive. Rena, Rena, do you expect me to endure that?"
    She didn't know how to answer such words, but she didn't have to because the next moment he had pulled her into his arms and was kissing her fiercely again and again, murmuring incoherently between kisses.
    "You're mine - do you understand? I won't tolerate that man even looking at you, much less thinking - Dear God! Kiss me, my darling - kiss me -tell me that it isn't all in my mind - say that you love me too - "
    "Oh yes - yes - I love you, so much."
    She had promised herself that she would never tell him of her love, for his sake. And yet the words burst from her, called forth by the intensity of his own emotion. He loved her. He had said so. And nothing in heaven or on earth could have prevented her from confessing her own love in return.
    "I love you," he said, holding her away from him so that he could see her face. "I love you in every way that a man can