bird called. Wheels rumbled on a distant road. Again the silence was
unbroken. The moonlight, falling on her face, gave to it an expression
of childishness. Her breast and throat, gleaming white as marble,
reminded him she was a woman.

She stirred. Her eyes opened. She gazed up at him wonderingly. "I'm
better. Foolish of me!" Then, inconsequently, "How tall you are, Lord
Taborley!"

He supported her till she could lean across the sill. They leant there
together, their faces nearly touching. His arm was still about her; she
did not seem to notice it. He was dumb with tremulous expectancy.

"It was about myself that I had to tell you," she whispered. "I was once
like you. I wanted no one else. I knew, even while I wanted him, that he
could never make me happy. Even when I was most in love with him, he
had qualities which I distrusted. After marriage the distrusting grew.
Yet all the while I was sorry for him. I would have given anything to
undo---- His sins were mine. With another woman, less virtuous, he might
have been good. In his yearning he tried to drag me down. I couldn't go,
not even if going would have saved him. There was something in me, not
exactly pride, that prevented. I have never spoken of this to anybody.
I'm saying it to you because----"

She broke off. Why was she saying it? The perfume of June roses under
moonlight, mingling with the fragrance of her hair, was intoxicating.
His arm about her tightened. Was she only allowing him to hold her out
of pity because of his confession?

"Because," she said, "I think before she knows of your visit it would be
better that you should go."

He failed to grasp her logic. "But if I stay, she will never know."

She released herself gently and gazed at him reproachfully. "Never know!
But you came in order that she might know."

He was more than ever puzzled. He had come to tell her of her husband.
Did she not believe him? She seemed to be accusing him. He remembered
how she had claimed, when he had entered, that she could guess what had
brought him. "I came solely to see you," he said, speaking slowly. "I
was compelled, as I've told you. I give you my word of honor that my
visit wasn't even remotely related to----"

A sharply indrawn breath cut short what he was saying. They turned
quickly, moving instinctively apart. Gazing in from the open door,
across the pool of lamplight, was Terry.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

ROUND THE CORNER

I

Lady Dawn wa